Two documents govern property delivery in Türkiye, and foreign buyers routinely confuse them. The Tapu (title deed) says the property is yours. The İskan (habitation certificate) says the building is finished, approved and fit to live in. You can hold the first without the second, and a great many owners do. That is the situation this guide exists to explain, because it is the one where money is at risk and nobody has told you.
The confusion matters most off-plan, where you pay for an apartment that does not exist yet. That is a normal and often sensible purchase in Türkiye. It is also the purchase where the difference between a good contract and an ordinary one is worth more than the discount that persuaded you.
What follows is the delivery sequence, the two title types you may be issued, what the İskan actually gates, and the contract terms that decide your position if the building runs late. At some point in a construction cycle, a share of buildings do.
Off-plan and ready to move: what you are really choosing between
Ready to move means the building is complete. You see the apartment you are buying, the view from its window, the finish that was actually installed and the neighbours who already live there. You can let it or move into it immediately. You pay for that certainty, and the premium over off-plan is the price of not carrying construction risk.
Off-plan means buying from a plan, a show flat and a render. In exchange you usually get launch pricing, the choice of floor and aspect while the good ones are still there, and an interest-free payment plan spread across the construction period. For many buyers that last one is the real attraction. It is a form of credit no bank would offer them in a foreign country.
What you are accepting is time and uncertainty: that the building completes, that it completes roughly when promised, and that what is delivered matches what was drawn. The first is largely a question of which developer. The second and third are questions of what the contract says.
Kat İrtifakı and Kat Mülkiyeti: the two titles
During construction, the title issued to you is normally Kat İrtifakı (construction servitude). It is a registered title, recorded at the Land Registry in your name, giving you legal ownership of a defined share of the land and the right to the apartment that will stand on it. It is not a reservation and it is not a promise.
What it is not is title to a finished apartment, because there is no finished apartment. Once the building is complete and the municipality has approved it, Kat İrtifakı converts to Kat Mülkiyeti, full condominium ownership of a specific, completed residence.
Both are legitimate and both are normal, but the risk is different. Mortgage lending against Kat İrtifakı is harder and fewer banks offer it. Some resale buyers hesitate at it, which narrows your market if you want to exit before completion. And the conversion depends on the building obtaining its İskan, which is not in your hands.
So the question before an off-plan purchase is not whether the label sounds safe. The questions are whether the title is actually registered, whether the project licences and plans match what you are buying, and what the contract commits the developer to do about conversion, and by when.
İskan: the certificate that unlocks everything else
The İskan (iskân ruhsatı, the habitation certificate) is issued by the municipality when a completed building matches its approved plans and meets the applicable regulations. It is the document that says the structure is legally fit for occupation.
It gates more than it appears to. Permanent utility connections in your own name depend on it. The conversion to kat mülkiyeti depends on it. A future buyer's lawyer will ask for it, and their bank will insist on it. A building occupied without one is not a scandal. It happens, sometimes for years, while an administrative issue is resolved. But it is a discount you will pay when you sell, and a complication for every owner in the meantime.
For a completed project, we confirm the İskan is in place before you buy. For an off-plan purchase, we look at whether the developer's previous buildings obtained theirs and how long after completion, because that record predicts this one far better than any assurance given at the point of sale.
The delivery sequence, in order
For an off-plan purchase, this is what happens between your first payment and the keys.
- Contract and initial registration. The sales contract is signed and, once the construction servitude is established, kat irtifakı is registered in your name.
- The payment plan runs: a down payment followed by instalments, usually tied to dates rather than to construction milestones. That distinction is worth understanding before you sign.
- Structural completion, then the finishes and the site's shared areas, which are usually the last things to be done and the most often behind.
- The developer applies for the İskan, and the municipality inspects the building against its approved plans.
- Handover: your inspection of the specific apartment, the snagging list, and the developer's obligation to remedy.
- İskan issued, utilities connected in your name, and kat irtifakı converts to kat mülkiyeti.
The clause that matters more than the delivery date
Every off-plan contract states a delivery date. Almost every buyer reads it as a commitment. It is a commitment only to the extent that something happens when it is missed.
The provision to look for describes the consequence of late delivery: compensation, a defined grace period after which it applies, and in a strong contract a right to withdraw and recover your payments once a delay passes a stated threshold. A contract with a date and no such clause has told you when the developer hopes to deliver. It has told you nothing about what you are owed if they do not.
Do not rely on a general promise of consumer protection in place of a written remedy. The terms in your own contract are what you will first have to use, and they vary widely between developers. When we review an off-plan contract this is the first section we turn to, and it is the most common thing we ask a developer to amend before a client signs.
Grace periods are normal and reasonable. Construction is weather, permits and supply chains. But an unlimited grace period is not a grace period. It is the absence of a date.
Payment protection: where your instalments actually sit
Money paid before a building exists is money at risk, and how that risk is managed is a fair question to ask out loud.
Ask what happens to your instalments if the project is not completed. Is there a bank guarantee, a building-completion insurance arrangement, an escrow structure? If so, who holds it and what triggers it? Ask too whether payments are tied to construction milestones rather than calendar dates, which aligns your money with actual progress.
Some established developers offer none of these and may still be acceptable on the evidence, but their record and balance sheet are not a legal guarantee. Treat them as risk evidence to document, not as a substitute for knowing what protects your payments. A developer who cannot say clearly what protects them has told you something.
Handover and snagging: the window that closes quietly
When the building completes you are invited to take delivery. This is the moment when your evidence is clearest and your practical leverage to have defects put right is highest, and it is over quickly.
Inspect the specific apartment against the specification in your contract, not against the show flat. Check what was actually installed: the brand and model of the appliances, the flooring, the sanitaryware. Substituting specified items for cheaper equivalents is common, and it is difficult to argue once you have signed for the keys. Check that what the drawings show as a window is a window, and that what they show facing the sea faces the sea.
Record every defect in writing before you accept handover, with photographs, and get the list acknowledged. A defect raised at handover is the developer's problem. The same defect raised six months later is usually yours, and the buyers who lose this are almost always the ones who were not in the country and accepted handover remotely to avoid the trip.
This is a large part of why we attend handovers for clients who are abroad. It is a day's work that decides who pays for the next five years of small things.
Buying a resale: what changes
Buying from a previous owner rather than a developer removes the construction risk entirely and introduces a different set of checks.
The building should already hold its İskan, and the title should already be kat mülkiyeti. If either is missing on a completed building, that is your first question, not a detail. The Land Registry record must be searched for mortgages, debts and annotations, which follow the property rather than the seller. Outstanding aidat is the seller's, but an unpaid balance can complicate the transfer, so we confirm it is settled before the appointment.
There is also no VAT exemption on a resale, and no snagging window. What you see is what you are buying, which is both the advantage and the whole of it.
What we verify before you commit off-plan
The checks below are the ones that predict outcomes, and they are all completed before any money leaves your account.
- The developer's delivery record: which projects completed, on what schedule against what was promised, and how long the İskan took afterwards.
- The construction licence and the approved plans for this project, matched against what is being sold to you.
- That the entity signing the contract is the one that owns the land and holds the licence. It is not always the name on the marketing.
- The contract's delivery date, grace period and late-delivery remedy, in that order.
- What protects your instalments, and whether payments follow dates or milestones.
- The specification, item by item, so the handover inspection has something to be measured against.
Terms used in this guide
Every term links to its full definition in the glossary.
