Anyone who owns a flat on the coast, a share in a family house or a plot of land in Turkey has usually made a will at home long ago — before a solicitor, a notary, or in their own handwriting in a drawer. The question that then gets asked too late is not "is my will valid in Turkey?" but "how far does it actually reach?"
The answer comes in two halves. In form, your foreign will is recognised in Turkey; you do not need to make it again. In substance, Turkish law governs your Turkish real estate — and Turkish law protects close family with a reserved share — not by barring a will that exceeds it, but by giving those it leaves short a claim to have it cut back after the death. For readers from a common-law country, where testamentary freedom is close to absolute, that is the whole of the surprise.
Two Questions Decide Everything
Before form and fractions, two questions are worth a minute. Their answers fix which law applies to which part of the estate, and how much freedom you have left.
The two switches. Do you hold Turkish nationality? Dual nationals are treated as Turkish before Turkish courts. Someone who was released from Turkish nationality on naturalising elsewhere — usually recognisable by the blue card (mavi kart) — is not. Do you own real estate in Turkey? Turkish inheritance law governs Turkish real estate without exception, whatever your nationality or residence.
The first question concerns your movable property and can be planned around. The second concerns the property itself and cannot. Four situations follow:
| Real estate in Turkey | No real estate in Turkey | |
|---|---|---|
| Turkish nationality held (including dual nationals) | Property: Turkish law Movables: contested | Movables: contested |
| No Turkish nationality (including blue card holders) | Property: Turkish law Movables: your own national law | Little Turkish connection |
For most readers of this page the lower-left box is the one that applies, and in it the division is permanent: the Turkish property under Turkish law, everything else under the law of your own country. There is no election that merges the two. The rest of this page is written for that position, with the dual national's option noted where it arises.
Valid in Form — and Still Not the Last Word
On form, Turkish private international law (Act No. 5718) is generous: a will validly executed under the law of the place where it was made is formally valid in Turkey. An English will signed and witnessed in the usual way, a will notarised in the Netherlands, a holograph will written under German or French rules — none of these fails in Turkey for want of form. You do not have to repeat your will merely because you own property in Turkey.
The generosity ends at content. Article 20 of the same Act splits the estate in two:
- Real estate located in Turkey is subject to Turkish inheritance law, irrespective of the nationality or residence of the deceased.
- Movable property — bank accounts, vehicles, shares — follows the national law of the deceased.
The Turkish Civil Code is a reception of the Swiss Civil Code. Readers who know a civil-law system will find the landscape familiar — public will, holograph will, action for abatement, disposable portion. Readers coming from English, Irish, American or Australian law will find that several of their own institutions have no counterpart at all; those are collected in a section below.
Which Law Governs Which Part
Article 20 in substance reads: succession is governed by the national law of the deceased; Turkish law applies to immovable property located in Turkey. The second half is uncontroversial. The first raises the question most often answered wrongly — what is the national law of someone who holds two passports, or has given one up?
Turkish conflict-of-laws rules answer it expressly. Under article 4 of the same Act, a person who holds Turkish nationality alongside another is treated as Turkish; the other nationality recedes and a Turkish court does not weigh which connection is closer. So:
- Dual nationals. Before Turkish courts, Turkish national law — for movable property worldwide, not only what is in Turkey.
- No Turkish nationality. Your own national law governs the movables. For the Turkish property it makes no difference: that follows the law of its location in any event.
A frequent confusion: the blue card confers rights, not nationality. Under article 28 of Act No. 5901, people released from Turkish nationality, and their descendants to the third degree, continue to enjoy the rights of Turkish nationals apart from voting, military service, duty-free importation and permanent public office. Owning land and inheriting are not on that list of exceptions, so a blue card holder can inherit and hold property in Turkey as before. For the question of national law, however, the card does not help: in conflict-of-laws terms the holder is a foreign national.
A detail that most foreign-language guides to Turkish succession omit: testamentary capacity is governed, under article 20(5) of Act No. 5718, by the national law of the testator at the time the will was made — not by Turkish law merely because Turkish assets are involved. A British national making a will covering a flat in Antalya is tested for capacity under the law of their own nationality; the Turkish age threshold mentioned below does not apply to them.
Can You Choose a Different Law? Mostly, No
This is where advice found online most often misleads. For real estate in Turkey there is no choice of law at all. A clause in your will electing English, Irish or New York law does not displace Turkish inheritance law for a Turkish flat, and neither does a choice made under the EU Succession Regulation. Turkey is not bound by that Regulation, and the Turkish land registry and courts apply Turkish law to Turkish immovables in every case.
One narrow exception exists, and it runs in the other direction. A person who holds Turkish nationality and lives in an EU member state can, under the EU Succession Regulation, choose the law of a nationality they hold — that is, choose Turkish law — for the whole of their estate. That does not free them from Turkish rules; it does the opposite. It removes the mismatch by subjecting the rest of the estate to Turkish rules as well, including the reserved shares. It is a way to make both sides calculate alike, not a way to escape.
The practical consequence for a foreign national who has never held Turkish nationality is worth stating plainly: you cannot plan around the Turkish reserved share by choosing a law. You can plan around it by arranging what you own, by valuing correctly, and by preparing the compensation the beneficiary will have to pay. Those are the levers that exist.
The Turkish Reserved Share Is Not a Money Claim
In England, Ireland and most common-law jurisdictions the family's protection, where it exists at all, operates as a claim against the estate — a court may order provision to be made out of it. Readers therefore assume that if the Turkish flat is left to one child, the others simply receive money instead.
Turkish law works differently. The person entitled to a reserved share is an heir, and their remedy is the action for abatement (tenkis davası, article 560 of the Turkish Civil Code). It reduces the disposition itself so far as it invades the reserved share; it is directed at the gift, not at the beneficiary's own pocket.
Where the asset cannot be divided — and a flat cannot — article 564 gives the beneficiary a choice: either pay out the excess value and keep the property, or return it to the estate and take the value of the disposable portion instead. The choice belongs to the beneficiary, but it assumes they can raise the payment. If they cannot, the property goes back.
For planning, this is the sentence that matters: a will leaving the Turkish property to one of several children is valid but vulnerable, and the attack can reach the property itself, not merely the beneficiary's funds. If you genuinely want the property to stay with one person, the fractions have to be built in from the start and the compensation arranged in advance.
How Much Can You Leave Freely?
The reserved share is a fraction of the statutory share, not of the estate. Since the 2007 reform:
| Entitled | Fraction of the statutory share |
|---|---|
| Descendants (children, grandchildren) | 1/2 |
| Father and mother (each) | 1/4 |
| Surviving spouse — alongside descendants, or alongside the parents' class | the whole statutory share |
| Surviving spouse — in the remaining cases | 3/4 |
| Siblings | none (abolished in 2007) |
Applied to the Turkish part of the estate, this gives the figure that actually governs planning — the disposable portion:
| Family situation | Reserved | Freely disposable |
|---|---|---|
| Spouse and children | 5/8 | 3/8 |
| Children only | 1/2 | 1/2 |
| Spouse and parents, no children | 5/8 | 3/8 |
| Spouse only | 3/4 | 1/4 |
| Siblings only | — | everything |
The first row is the common case and repays working through. Alongside children the spouse's statutory share is 1/4, and their reserved share is the whole of it — so 1/4. The children divide the remaining 3/4 and their reserved share is half of that, so 3/8. Together 5/8 is reserved, leaving 3/8 of the Turkish property freely disposable.
These fractions are not a prohibition. No Turkish notary refuses to draw up a will that goes beyond them, and nothing stops the testator from disposing of property during their lifetime. A disposition that exceeds the disposable portion is not void; it takes effect as written. The reserved share is not a ceiling that operates by itself but a claim that arises after the death: an heir who does not receive the value of their reserved share may sue to have the excess reduced (article 560 of the Civil Code). If no one sues, the disposition stands. The right is also time-barred — one year from learning of the infringement and in any event ten years from the opening of the will (article 571); after that the reduction can only be raised as a defence.
For planning, the practical question is therefore not "how much may I leave freely" but "if I go beyond it, who can sue, until when — and will they?" The disposable portion marks what is beyond dispute; past it the disposition is not impossible, only contestable.
These fractions apply to the Turkish part of the estate. The same person's assets at home continue to follow their own national law. One testator therefore triggers two different sets of family-protection rules, and the two parts cannot simply be set off against each other.
Disinheritance is possible but narrow. It requires a statutory ground — a serious criminal offence against the testator or persons close to them, or a grave breach of family obligations — the ground must be stated in the will, and in a dispute the burden of proof lies on whoever relies on it. Estrangement on its own is not enough. If the ground is missing from the will, or is stated but cannot be proved, the disposition does not fall away: it is carried out only outside the heir's reserved share, so what began as disinheritance ends as a claim for abatement.
What Your Own Law Does Not Carry Over
Several arrangements that do the work of succession planning in common-law countries have no equivalent in Turkish law, and none of them reaches a property registered in an individual's name at the Turkish land registry.
- Executors and personal representatives. Turkish law does know an executor of a will, but the estate does not vest in them. On death the property passes directly to the heirs, who hold it jointly until it is divided. There is no personal representative taking legal title and distributing afterwards.
- Probate. There is no grant of probate to obtain and none to produce. What the land registry wants is a Turkish certificate of inheritance, and a notary may issue it only where every applicant is a Turkish national and the civil registers suffice; otherwise it comes from a Turkish civil court.
- Trusts. Turkish law has no trust. A Turkish immovable cannot be registered in the name of a trust, and a trust in your home-country will does not govern what happens to it.
- Joint tenancy and the right of survivorship. The Turkish land register knows co-ownership in defined shares and joint ownership arising from a legal relationship such as inheritance. It does not record a survivorship right between spouses. A deceased co-owner's share passes to their heirs under Turkish succession rules, not automatically to the survivor.
- "Everything to my wife." Perfectly effective at home; in Turkey it invades the children's reserved share in the Turkish property and is open to an abatement action.
The Three Forms of Turkish Will
1. Public will (article 532). Made before a notary, a magistrate or an officer authorised by law, with two witnesses. The witnesses need not know the contents. The spouse, relatives in the direct line, siblings and their spouses may not act as witness or officiant, and gifts to those people are void by operation of law — the gift only, not the whole will. The notary reports the will to the civil registry, so that it can be found through the state records when the testator dies. This is the safest form.
2. Holograph will (article 538). Written by the testator personally, without witnesses.
Three requirements, all mandatory: written out entirely by hand; dated with year, month and day; signed by the testator. A typed text, or a printed form filled in, is void. Deposit with a notary or magistrate is not compulsory but is the most effective protection against loss and suppression.
The date deserves a note. In Turkish law it is not a formality but a condition of validity: an undated holograph will made under Turkish law can be set aside. If you make your will at home you remain under your own formal rules — the warning is for anyone putting pen to paper in Turkey.
3. Will in extraordinary circumstances (article 539). Only where neither other form is possible — imminent danger of death, a closed road, epidemic, war. The testator declares their last wishes to two witnesses, who bring them to court. It lapses one month after ordinary execution again becomes possible.
| Form | Witnesses | Security |
|---|---|---|
| Public (art. 532) | 2 | High — registered, traceable on death |
| Holograph (art. 538) | none | Medium — deposit strongly advisable |
| Extraordinary (art. 539) | 2 | Low — lapses after one month |
Turkish law also knows the inheritance contract, which requires the form of a public will and full legal capacity, whereas a will requires only that the testator has completed the age of fifteen and has capacity of discernment. Those thresholds apply only where Turkish law governs capacity — that is, to a Turkish national. A will, unlike an inheritance contract, binds no one: it may be revoked at any time and without reason.
A later will does not automatically cancel an earlier one. Unless it clearly replaces it, it supplements it, and in a dispute the court examines whether the two texts can stand together. If you want clarity, write the revocation in expressly.
Why a Separate Turkish Will Is Usually Simpler
Your foreign will is valid in form — but it is not convenient. After the death it has to be produced to the Turkish magistrates' court, apostilled and translated by a sworn translator. Each step costs weeks, and every translation creates questions of interpretation that did not exist in the original: terms such as "residuary estate", "life interest" or "trustee" have no exact counterpart in Turkish law.
A second will dealing only with the Turkish assets avoids that. It is in Turkish, registered with a notary and findable on death, it uses Turkish legal concepts, and it is opened without apostille or translation.
One thing then decides everything: the two wills must not contradict each other. Because a later disposition does not automatically revoke an earlier one under Turkish law, the Turkish will should say expressly that it concerns only property located in Turkey and leaves the other will otherwise untouched — and the other will should mirror the same boundary. Drafting the second will without telling the draftsman of the first is how families end up litigating both.
If You Are Married: the Property Regime Comes First
In marriages with a foreign element one step is regularly skipped. Before an estate is distributed at all, the matrimonial property regime must be wound up. What the surviving spouse takes under matrimonial property law is not part of the estate; it is taken out first, and only the remainder is divided by inheritance shares and reserved shares. Anyone disposing of the Turkish property by will may therefore be disposing of less than they think.
Which law governs the regime is answered by article 15 of Act No. 5718 in a fixed order: first what the spouses expressly chose — they may choose the law of their habitual residence at the time of the marriage, or the national law of either of them; failing a choice, their common national law at the time of the marriage; failing that, the law of their common habitual residence then; and failing that, Turkish law.
A second limb of the same provision is easy to read past and matters more for real estate: in the liquidation of the property, immovables follow the law of the country where they are situated. The regime itself may be governed by English or Dutch law while the winding-up that touches the Turkish flat follows Turkish law. Keeping those two levels apart is exactly where estate planning for international marriages tends to fail.
The practical order is therefore simple: first establish which regime applies and what it gives the surviving spouse in the Turkish property, and only then calculate inheritance and reserved shares on what is left.
Which Court, and Where
A common short circuit concerns jurisdiction. For claims that concern ownership of the property itself — rectification of the land register, an abatement leading to restitution — the court of the place where the property lies has jurisdiction, and under Turkish civil procedure (article 12) that jurisdiction is mandatory.
For succession proceedings generally the position is not the same. Article 43 of Act No. 5718 assigns them to the court of the deceased's last domicile in Turkey and, failing that, to the place where estate assets are located — as an ordinary head of jurisdiction, not as a bar to proceedings abroad. Conducting an estate administration in your own country is therefore not wrong in itself; you will simply need a Turkish proceeding for anything that touches the Turkish land register.
One cost belongs in the same calculation and is regularly forgotten: a claimant who lives abroad — a foreign national under article 48 of Act No. 5718, a Turkish citizen without habitual residence in Turkey under article 84(1)(a) of the Code of Civil Procedure — is required to provide security for costs, and the case is dismissed if it is not provided in time. There are exemptions, and heirs abroad are often inside them; the rule and the two routes out of it are set out in Inheritance in Turkey.
What Happens After the Death
However the will is drafted, the sequence in Turkey is the same. The death is notified to the Turkish civil registry, usually through a Turkish consulate if it occurred abroad. A certificate of inheritance is obtained — from a notary where every applicant is a Turkish national and the civil registers are complete, otherwise from a Turkish civil court. The inheritance tax declaration is filed within four months where the death and the heirs are in the same country, six where only one of the two is abroad, and eight where they are in different foreign countries. Title is then registered in the heirs' names, and only afterwards can the property be sold or divided.
Our guide to inheritance in Turkey for foreign nationals follows that sequence in detail, including the three-month deadline for renouncing an inheritance and the restrictions that apply to foreign heirs of Turkish land. Almost every step of it can be handled by a representative in Turkey under a power of attorney, without travelling.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is my English, Irish or American will valid in Turkey?
In form, yes. A will validly executed under the law of the place where it was made is formally valid in Turkey, so you do not need to make it again. In substance it is limited: Turkish law governs your Turkish real estate, and Turkish law reserves fixed shares for descendants, parents and the surviving spouse, and a will that exceeds them is valid but open to an abatement claim after the death.
Can I leave my Turkish property to whomever I like?
In form, to whomever you like — but only the disposable portion is beyond challenge. With a spouse and children, 5/8 of the Turkish property is reserved and 3/8 is freely disposable; with children only, half is free; with a spouse alone, a quarter. A disposition that exceeds the disposable portion is valid but can be reduced by an action for abatement brought by those whose reserved share it invades.
Can my children just be paid off in money instead?
Not as of right. Unlike a family-provision claim in a common-law system, the Turkish reserved share belongs to an heir and the remedy is directed at the disposition itself. Where the asset is indivisible, such as a flat, the beneficiary may choose to pay out the excess value and keep it — but if they cannot raise that payment, the property returns to the estate.
Can I choose English law for my Turkish property in my will?
No. There is no choice of law for real estate located in Turkey; Turkish inheritance law applies whatever the will says and whatever your nationality. A choice made under the EU Succession Regulation does not change this either, since Turkey is not bound by it. The only choice that has effect runs the other way and requires Turkish nationality.
Should I make a separate Turkish will?
Usually yes, if the Turkish assets matter. A foreign will must be produced to a Turkish court, apostilled and translated after the death, and translation raises interpretation questions that the original did not have. A short Turkish will covering only the Turkish assets is registered with a notary, findable on death and opened without those steps. It must say expressly that it is confined to Turkish assets, and the other will must mirror that boundary.
Does a trust or a survivorship clause keep my Turkish flat out of the estate?
No. Turkish law has no trust, and a Turkish immovable cannot be registered in the name of one. The Turkish land register also records no right of survivorship between co-owners: on the death of one, their share passes to their own heirs under Turkish succession rules. Neither device reaches a property registered in an individual's name in Turkey.
I hold a blue card. Does that change my position?
For owning and inheriting, no — a blue card holder can hold property and inherit in Turkey as before, since those rights are not among the exceptions listed in article 28 of Act No. 5901. For the question of which national law governs your movable estate it does not help: the card confers rights, not nationality, and in conflict-of-laws terms you are a foreign national.
Is a handwritten will enough in Turkey?
A holograph will made under Turkish law is valid if it is written out entirely by hand, dated with the year, month and day, and signed. A typed text or a completed printed form is void, and the date is a condition of validity rather than a formality. Deposit with a notary or magistrate is not compulsory but is the effective protection against loss. If you make your will in your own country, your own formal rules apply instead.
My spouse and I own the flat together. What happens on the first death?
Two steps, in order. First the matrimonial property regime is wound up, and what the surviving spouse takes from it is not part of the estate. Only the remainder passes by succession, with the spouse's reserved share alongside children being the whole of their statutory quarter. Which law governs the regime is determined by article 15 of Act No. 5718, but the liquidation of an immovable always follows the law of the country where it lies.
Related Guides
- Inheritance in Turkey for Foreign Nationals
- Power of Attorney for Turkey from Abroad
- Buying Property in Turkey
- Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments
If you would like your own position looked at, write to info@arifgolcan.av.tr with a note of what you own in Turkey, your nationality and marital status, and who you would like to benefit, or use the contact form. A calculation of the reserved shares against your actual family situation is the usual first step.
This guide is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Shares, formal requirements and deadlines change by legislation; verify the current position for your specific case before acting.