New development
The Law on the Amendment of Law on Judges and Prosecutors and Certain Laws (“Law“) was published in Official Gazette No. 31880 and dated 28 June 2022. The Law introduces significant amendments to Law No. 1512 on Notary Public, and authorizes notaries to execute real estate sales contracts.
What does the Law introduce?
The long-debated regulation allowing the execution of real estate sales contracts by notaries, which is considered an opportunity for easier and faster execution of real estate sales transactions through citing examples in other countries, will enter into force on 1 January 2023 at the latest.
Pursuant to the regulation, upon completion of document exchanges, notaries will review the title deed records and documents related to the real estate with the land registry offices through the land registry information system. As a result of this review, if there is no legal obstacle to the sale of the real estate, notaries will prepare a real estate sales contract and transfer it to the land registry information system.
Following the registration of the contract with the information system, the land registry office will register the contract with the respective land registry records. In this regard, the authority to change the title deed registry records is not given to notaries, but it is left with the land registry offices.
The financial aspect of real estate sales transactions that will be executed by notaries will not be very different to those of land registry offices. Pursuant to the Law, the real estate contracts executed by notaries will be exempt from stamp tax, and papers issued in relation to these transactions will also be exempt from valuable paper fees. The following fees will be charged on real estate transactions executed by notaries:
- Title deed fees stipulated under subparagraph (a) of paragraph (20) of the section titled “I-Title deed transactions” of the tariff numbered (4) attached to the Law numbered 492 on Fees
- Notary fee shown in the fee schedule, as long as it is not less than TRY 500 and not more than TRY 4,000 depending on the value of the real estate
- Service fee to be registered as revenue to the Revolving Fund Management of General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre
Pursuant to Article 14 of the Law, the regulation enabling notaries to execute real estate sales contracts will enter into force when the completion of the installation of the mentioned information system is announced on the Ministry of Justice’s website until 1 January 2023.
Conclusion
The regulation, enabling notaries to execute real estate sales transactions, is an amendment aimed at executing real estate transactions in a faster and easier manner. Following this development, the Ministry of Justice is expected to regulate the procedures and principles with a secondary regulation in the coming days. In this regard, it is necessary to follow both the announcements regarding the relevant information system and the secondary regulation to be published.
