Pursuant to the provisions of the Notary Law No. 1512, it is regulated that real estate presale contracts are made in the presence of a notary public as a condition of form. On the other hand, real estate sales contracts could only be drawn up at the land registry offices, not at the notary public. With the amendment published in the Official Gazette dated 28.06.2022, an additional article was added to the Notary Law No. 1512 and, as of 01.01.2023, real estate sales contracts can now be drawn up not only in land registry offices but also in notary publics.
In the regulation, it is understood that notary publics are under the obligation to consider all kinds of restrictions on real estate and to observe the restrictions, procedures and principles in other laws regarding the sale of real estate. Although it is also included in the new regulation that the sale of the real estate will be done at the notary publics, after the necessary conditions are met, the notaries will issue an application document upon the application for the sale of the real estate. During the process, the necessary documents will be shared with the notaries through the land registry information system by the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre, and after the notary public’s determination that there is no legal situation preventing the sale of the real estate, the real estate sales contract will be signed with the signature of the parties and uploaded to the land registry information system. Upon completion of the upload to the system, the real estate will be registered to the land registry by the relevant land registry office.
If the right holder cannot be determined in the title deed registration sample or in the required documents, or if there is a legal situation preventing the sale, the sale will not be carried out by the notaries as a natural consequence. In this context, in order to prevent legal disputes, this issue is also included in the regulation.
As per the regulation, notary public’s title deed fee and notary fee will be charged during the real estate sales transactions, but stamp duty and papers related to the sales transaction will be exempted from the valuable paper price within the scope of the real estate sales contract made in their presence. However, in the continuation of the regulation, it has been regulated that even if the transactions are carried out at the notary public, a service fee will be charged to the revolving fund enterprise of the General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre for real estate sales transactions. Thus, in real estate sales contracts to be made by notaries; notary fee, title deed fee and service fee will be paid. A limitation has also been imposed on the notary fees to be collected within the scope of the transaction, and it is stipulated that it cannot be less than five hundred Turkish liras or more than four thousand Turkish liras, depending on the value of the real estate.
Finally, since the procedures and principles regarding the real estate sales contracts to be made before the notary public will be determined by the regulation to be issued by the Ministry of Justice, the details of the real estate sales transactions to be made at the notary public offices have not been clarified yet.
Elif Göktepeliler Attorney at Law
