THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE HAS PUBLISHED THE REGULATION AUTHORIZING THE SALE OF IMMOVABLES BY THE NOTARY, WITH THE EFFECTIVE DATE SET FOR JANUARY 1, 2023. 29 June 2022

With the regulation made, "making a preliminary contract for the sale of immovable and, if one of the parties demands this contract and pays the fees and expenses, annotating the land registry through the land registry information system, concluding a contract of sale of immovable" was added to the authority of notary publics.
 

In terms of immovable sales contracts, the authorization details were regulated with the article 61/A added to the Notary Law No. 1512. According to this,
 

• Notaries may also issue an immovable sales contract.
• Upon receiving an application for the sale of an immovable, notaries public will issue an application document accordingly. While issuing the application document, they will analyze all of the constraints on the immovable, as well as the principles, methods, and restrictions in other legislations pertaining to the sale of an immovable.
• The General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre shares the title deed registration sample and other relevant documentation with notaries via the land registry information system. In case the records and documents related to the immovable are missing, Notary Publics requests the missing items from the relevant land registry directorate through the registry and cadastre information system. Following the request, these deficiencies are corrected by the land registry directorate and uploaded to the relevant system accordingly. An immovable sales contract will be prepared once the right owner has been identified by the notary public and it has been established that nothing in the law is impeding the sale of the immovable.
• Notary publics carry out the transactions related to the immovable sales contract in person.
• In case the holder of the right cannot be identified from the land registry copy and other documents, or if there is a legal situation preventing the sale, no sales transactions are to be carried out by the notary public.
• Only "title deed fee" is collected from immovable sales contracts to be issued by the notaries.
• • Immovable sales contracts are exempted from stamp tax and the papers issued regarding these transactions are also exempted from valuable paper costs.
• No fee other than the notary public's fee can be charged for the transactions made within the scope of this article. The notary fee cannot be less than five hundred Turkish liras and more than four thousand Turkish liras according to the value of the immovable. These fees shall be demonstrated on the Notary's fee lists. These amounts are applied with an increase each year at the revaluation rate determined and announced under the provisions of the recurrent article 298 of the Tax Procedure Law No. 213 with respect to the previous year, effective from the beginning of the following calendar year.
• No share or contribution is to be paid to the notary public as a result of immovable sales transactions; instead, a fee will be collected for the purpose of registering the applicable service fee as income to the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre's revolving fund.
• A regulation governing the methods and guidelines for implementing the articles into effect will be issued by the Ministry of Justice after consulting with the Ministries of Treasury and Finance and Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change.
   

In the new regulation, notary publics are also held responsible for the damages caused by the issuance of the immovable sales contract. In case this damage is paid by the State, the State will recourse to the notary who issued the contract. Lawsuits to be filed against the notary public will be heard in the court of the place where the land registry is located.
 

The regulations will be in effect on the day the information system is announced via the Ministry of Justice's official website. This information system will be in place until January 1, 2023, with a six-month extension option given to the discretion of the President.