New law for property sales to foreigners still pending
Posted by meb at May 14th, 2007
The new law on property sales to foreigners, legislated two years ago, has not yet been put into to practice, meaning that property registration procedures are still taking as long as six months and causing difficulties to the real estate and construction industries.
Foreigners lose their desire to buy property in Turkey because of the length of the legal process. New arrangements removing the approval of local commanders for sales and land registry first require the drawing up of lists of strategic lands that cannot be sold to foreigners. However, as Land Registry Administration General Manager Zeki Adlı complained, the maps sent from the Defense Ministry did not match the registry maps, Procedures are still dragging on, he said. “There were some faults, and we are trying to fix them. Revocatory actions by the Constitutional Court played an important role in the delays, but we will finish the new maps in near future,” he added.
To date 70,000 properties have been sold to foreigners. Antalya is the leading city in such sales, with 60 percent of these in the Alanya district, where 9,300 properties have been sold to foreigners. Alanya Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vice President Hüseyin Erkek said they were carrying out transactions according to former regulations while awaiting an agreement between the Land Registry and the Defense Ministry. The strategic land information should have been made available within four months of the new legislation, but two years on it has still not been issued. “For example a letter is sent to Aegean army command for every single sale. Sometimes the return of an answer takes six months and the foreigners quit the deal,” he said. Erkek added that because of uncertainly they could not sell fully completed houses and faced financial difficulties.
Costello İnşaat and Real Estate General Manager Emin Yener said it was distressing for new law not to have been implemented for two years. He added that it was a shameful that in Turkey people were waiting four to six months for confirmation of a single property sale.
Toroslar İnşaat General Manager Hüseyin Gülseren said the quality of Turkish construction is improving and that this had attracted more foreigners. “But the recent murders and bombings downgraded the image of Turkey,” he said, noting that people’s minds were changed as soon as they visited Turkey, even if initially scared. However, “some 90 percent of visitors from Germany, Denmark and Ireland want to buy a house in Turkey but give up because of the bureaucracy,” he added.
Elite Group General Manager Erhan Doğan said the real estate sector and construction firms were contributing to Turkey’s economy and publicity but were being restricted by legal obstacles.
source: Today’s Zaman
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