Terry&Sue

This thread re habitation approval has been a real eye opener to us as our complex of 36 apartments and 4 villas was completed Dec 2005 and the certificate must have been obtained by our builder almost immediately.
Having been told to look for the star in the Kat Mulkiyeti box on the Tapu, we had a quick look and it was yes ok fine.
The problem is obviously with very large developments which take years to finish like Maria,s but it causes great hassle and needs new regulations urgently now that mortgages are available and the difference scale for electricity costs is obvious.
I too am grateful to forum members for clarifying things.

Guz1

Terry,

I didn't buy an offplan property. I bought a half finished house on a site that was already up and running. The Living Permit for the house was already in place. The original builder had gone (think he went bankrupt) and my house was one of four that he had sold on to the developer who finished it off when we bought it from him. Stupidly, I just assumed that the house would be fixed up as arranged and when I got my title deed I would be finished with officialdom apart from paying the usual bills and taxes.

Neither is it just foreigners who don't know about habitation certificates and Kat Mulkiyet/Irtifaki. One of our Istanbul neighbours who bought just before us had never heard of it when I showed her our Kullanma. There were other unfinished houses on our site that nobody made any attempt to fix up until the sitesi committee started threatening to fine the owners. Once fines were mentioned all the half built houses were finished off.

It's not for us to tell the Turkish Government how to control their building industry, but I do think that if they put a ban on issuing title deeds for half finished properties there wouldn't be so many unfinished sites. Maybe the banks' refusal to give mortgages on Kat Irtifaki properties will have the same effect.

Dalaman Deli

This is a very valid point Maria and I too am hoping that the mortgage situation will help to improve the title deed anomalies. Sadly I think it will take such a long time for things change in this way that I will probably have retired before it happens. It needs Government intervention to get the checks and balances in place but in a country where probably half of the national population haven't got a habitation license, yet normal life still goes on, it is hard to get over to anyone here the importance of this for foreigner purchasers. My biggest frustration is the language barrier which hinders my ability to fully get to grips with both the legislation and finding the right people to lobby. I am learning but is is çok, çok zor!