EXCHANGE CERTIFICATE
The demands of foreign national real persons regarding the real estate acquisition in our country are currently taking place within the framework of the provisions of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change (“Ministry”) circular dated 06/08/2012 and numbered 2012/12 and the Capital Movements Regulation of the Central Bank. However, with the circular numbered 2022/1 published by the Ministry on 21.01.2022, important regulations were made regarding the “exchange certificate” in real estate acquisitions of foreign real persons.
1) What is a Exchange Certificate?
An Exchange Certificate document is a document issued upon the sale of the sale price to the Central Bank in USD, EUR or GBP by the buyer, seller or their proxies or representatives of the real estate prior to the acquisition, in the regard of acquisition of real estate by foreign real persons in Turkey. According to the legislation, this document must be submitted to the relevant Land Registry Directorate before purchasing.
2) What information should be included in the Exchange Certificate as a minimum?
In the exchange certificate,
- Name and surname of the real person on whose behalf the currency is exchanged,
- Passport number or foreigner identification number or tax identification number,
- The TL equivalent of the foreign currency bought,
- Finally, this transaction was carried out within the scope of the above-mentioned “Circular on Capital Movements, Article 13”,
- Deed information to be obtained,
- For what purpose the foreign currency purchase document will be used (eg, if a house is bought for citizenship, then the citizenship element must be specified.)
- Stamp of the bank issuing the document and wet signature of the officer,
elements must be included. The exchange documents that does not contain this information will not be legally valid.
3) What are the points to be considered in the acquisitions made by foreign real persons with a Exchange Certificate?
As stated above, it is an obligation for the relevant parties to submit the Exchange certificate to the Land Registry Directorate during and/or before the sales transactions. The official deed must also be drawn up on the basis of the Turkish lira value included in the Exchange certificate. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the exchanged amount. There should be no payment item (such as expense, commission, etc.) other than the real estate sales/sales promise contract price within the exchange amount that is the basis of the declaration value since the value declared for sales in the title deed will be made to the bank within the framework of the aforementioned regulations. Because, as a result of this regulation, a separate exchange rate calculation will not be made for the value of the promise to sell contract to be drawn up in the official deed to be drawn up at the Land Registry Directorate or the notary public, and the amounts in the Exchange certificate will be taken as a basis.
4) What will happen if the foreign natural person has sufficient Turkish lira in his account to purchase the real estate before he buys real estate in Turkey? Is it possible for the person to buy the real estate directly?
No, it is not possible. In this case, there will be no change regarding the purchase. Even if the person is able to pay for the real estate he wants to buy with the amount in his account, this money in the account will be converted again in USD, EUR or GBP by the relevant persons and sold to the Central Bank, according to the regulations. As a result of these transactions, the foreign exchange purchase document will be issued in order to be submitted to the relevant Land Registry Office.