Between 2021 and 2025, Turkey recorded a 190% surge in property-fraud cases, according to data from the Ministry of Justice. That is not a rounding error or a statistical blip — it is a structural warning to anyone buying property in a market that has attracted record numbers of international buyers. And nowhere is the warning louder than on the coast. Consider one recent Alanya case. A group of foreign investors paid roughly €180,000 per unit for apartments in a coastal development. The brochure was glossy, the show flat was immaculate, and the developer was charming. After they signed and transferred their money, the buyers discovered something the developer had never mentioned: 13.1 million Turkish lira in hidden mortgages registered against the land their building stood on. The bank, not the buyers, held the strongest claim to those apartments. This is the uncomfortable truth about buying property in Turkey: the developer's reputation, as presented to you, is marketing. The developer's reputation, as recorded in public registries, is fact. The gap between the two is where buyers lose money. The good news is that almost everything you need to verify a Turkish developer is publicly accessible, free or near-free, and available before you sign anything. This guide walks through five concrete checks — plus a handful of bonus signals — that separate a legitimate developer from a liability. Treat it as a skeptic's checklist. If a developer resists any of these checks, that resistance is itself your answer. Check 1: Run the TKGM Parcel Query (Encumbrances) Your first move costs nothing and takes five minutes. The General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre (Tapu ve Kadastro Genel Müdürlüğü, or TKGM) operates a free public portal at parselsorgu.tkgm.gov.tr. No login, no fee, no intermediary. Enter the parcel details (il / ilçe / ada / parsel — province, district, block, parcel) for the land the project sits on. Ask the developer for these numbers directly; a legitimate one will hand them over without hesitation. The portal shows you the registered parcel, its boundaries, and its area. The parcel query is your first filter, but it is not the complete picture. For the full encumbrance file — the Takyidat Belgesi — you (or your lawyer) request the record at the local Tapu Müdürlüğü (Land Registry Office). This document reveals the encumbrances that sink deals: İpotek — mortgages registered against the land. This is exactly what trapped the Alanya investors above. A mortgage on the parent parcel can survive the sale of individual units. Haciz — liens or seizures, often signalling the developer is in debt or litigation. Şerh — annotations, restrictions, or third-party rights that limit what can be built or sold. If you see an active ipotek or haciz on the parcel and the developer cannot show you a written, bank-issued release plan, stop. You are looking at someone else's claim on the property you are about to pay for. For the deeper mechanics of reading the title record itself, see our companion guide on 570882a0-dcfd-4b98-8bd9-ec18c5d2cfba. Check 2: Read the Ticaret Sicil Gazetesi (Company History) A building is only as trustworthy as the company that builds it. The Turkish Trade Registry Gazette (Ticaret Sicil Gazetesi) at ticaretsicil.gov.tr is the official public record of every registered company in Turkey, and it is free to search. Look up the developer's legal entity — not the brand name on the billboard, but the registered şirket. Every company also carries a 16-digit MERSIS number, verifiable through the Ministry of Trade's central registry portal. Once you find the right entity, read the file for four things: Founding date. A company incorporated three months before launching a €20 million project is a red flag. Track records take years to build. A brand-new shell with no history behind a large off-plan project deserves heavy skepticism. Registered capital. Is the company capitalised at a level remotely proportional to the project? A firm with nominal capital of a few thousand lira promising hundreds of units cannot absorb cost overruns. Shareholders and directors. Who actually owns this company? Cross-reference the names against other projects — successful and failed. A director who has dissolved three companies after collecting deposits is a pattern, not a coincidence. Dissolution or liquidation notices. The Gazette publishes these. If the entity (or sister entities under the same owners) has dissolution filings, you need a very good explanation before proceeding. The Gazette converts the developer's self-told story into a verifiable timeline. Where the timeline and the sales pitch diverge, trust the timeline. Check 3: Verify the Yapı Ruhsatı and İmar Durumu (Building Permit) A developer can own clean land and still be selling you a building that legally does not exist yet — or one larger than the permit allows. This is where the Yapı Ruhsatı (building permit) and İmar Durumu (zoning status) come in. The Yapı Ruhsatı is issued by the local municipality (Belediye). Your lawyer can verify it directly with the Belediye that issued it. When you check it, match the document against physical reality and against the sales plan: Does the permit exist at all? Selling off-plan units before a valid building permit is issued is a serious warning sign. Does the permitted floor count match what is being built? A frequent fraud and zoning-violation pattern is a permit for, say, five floors while the developer constructs seven. Those extra floors are unauthorised (kaçak), cannot receive their occupancy certificate, and are candidates for demolition orders. Does the İmar Durumu allow residential use? Land zoned for agriculture or tourism cannot always be freely sold as residential apartments. The zoning certificate tells you what the parcel is legally permitted to become. If the floor count on the permit does not match the crane outside, you are not buying a discount — you are buying a legal problem that the İskan stage (next) will expose at the worst possible time. Check 4: Confirm the İskan — the Make-or-Break Certificate If you remember only one item from this entire guide, make it this one. The İskan — formally the Yapı Kullanma İzin Belgesi (Occupancy / Building Use Permit) — is the certificate that confirms a completed building was constructed in accordance with its permit and is legally fit for habitation. A building without İskan is not just a paperwork gap. It is a cascade of practical failures: No individual utility meters. Without İskan, the building cannot get permanent, individually metered electricity and water connections. Owners share a temporary construction-grade connection and fight over the bill for years. No bank mortgages. Turkish banks will not issue a mortgage against a property that lacks İskan. That instantly shrinks your future resale pool to cash-only buyers. No short-term rental (STR) permit. If your investment thesis depends on holiday letting, no İskan means no tourism rental licence — your income model is dead on arrival. It sells slower. Industry experience puts İskan-less units at roughly 10–20% slower to sell, and usually at a discount, because informed buyers and every mortgage-dependent buyer walk away. For a completed building, ask to see the İskan. For an off-plan purchase, get the developer's İskan timeline in writing and tie payment milestones to it. A developer who is vague about İskan on a finished building is telling you the building has a problem. This single certificate is so central to a safe purchase that it features prominently in our broader 6c96de75-0fe0-4d52-9c16-b0ebd05ef960 as well. Check 5: Verify the KDV/VAT Exemption — If It Is Claimed Many developers market a headline perk to foreign buyers: a KDV (VAT) exemption on the purchase. It is a real and valuable benefit — but only when the developer and the transaction actually qualify, and only when claimed correctly. The exemption rests on a specific legal basis: the developer must be entitled to apply Law No. 3065, Article 13/i, the provision that exempts qualifying first-sale residential and commercial deliveries to non-resident foreign buyers who bring foreign currency into Turkey and hold the property for the required period. Do not take the exemption on faith. Verify the developer's VAT standing and the validity of the claim through the Revenue Administration (Gelir İdaresi Başkanlığı, GİB) digital portal at digital.gib.gov.tr, with your lawyer or accountant confirming that the specific transaction structure meets the 13/i conditions. If a developer advertises a VAT exemption but cannot cite the legal article or point to documentation supporting it, treat the "discount" as a sales tactic rather than a guaranteed saving — and budget as if you will pay the full VAT. Bonus Checks: Reputation Signals That Add Confidence The five core checks are about avoiding disaster. These bonus signals help you distinguish a merely-safe developer from a genuinely strong one. GYODER membership. The Association of Real Estate and Real Estate Investment Companies (GYODER) maintains a public member list at gyoder.org.tr, with roughly 200 corporate members. Membership is not a guarantee, but established, institutional developers are disproportionately represented. Verify any claimed membership against the list rather than the brochure. TOKİ partnership. A documented partnership or joint project with TOKİ (the state housing administration) signals a level of vetting and scale that fly-by-night operators rarely achieve. Ask for proof, not just a logo. Reference projects you can physically visit. A real developer can point you to completed buildings with real owners living in them, real İskan certificates, and real management companies. Visit one. Talk to an owner who is not on the developer's payroll. Ask whether utilities, paperwork, and timelines matched what was promised. Red Flags Checklist Keep this table handy. Any single red flag warrants a pause; two or more warrants walking away.
| Red Flag | What It Usually Means | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Active ipotek or haciz on the parcel with no written release plan | A bank or creditor has a stronger claim than you will |
| 2 | Company founded weeks or months before launching a large project | No track record; possible shell entity |
| 3 | Registered capital wildly out of proportion to project size | No financial cushion for overruns or disputes |
| 4 | Building permit floor count does not match construction | Unauthorised (kaçak) floors; demolition / no-İskan risk |
| 5 | Completed building still has no İskan | No meters, no mortgages, no STR licence, slow resale |
| 6 | VAT exemption advertised but no Law 3065 Art. 13/i basis shown | Marketing claim, not a guaranteed saving |
| 7 | Developer resists, delays, or "can't find" any requested document | The single most reliable warning sign of all |
Frequently Asked Questions Can I run these checks myself, or do I need a lawyer? You can personally run the free TKGM parcel query, search the Ticaret Sicil Gazetesi, and check GYODER membership and the GİB portal. However, the Takyidat Belgesi (full encumbrance file), the Yapı Ruhsatı verification at the Belediye, and confirmation of the İskan and VAT-exemption conditions are best handled by an independent Turkish lawyer who is not connected to the developer or the agency. The public checks tell you when to dig deeper; the lawyer confirms the legal reality. What is the difference between Yapı Ruhsatı and İskan? The Yapı Ruhsatı (building permit) is issued before construction and authorises the developer to build a specific structure. The İskan, or Yapı Kullanma İzin Belgesi (occupancy permit), is issued after construction and certifies that the finished building matches its permit and is legally fit to live in. A project can have a valid building permit yet never receive İskan if it was built differently from the approved plans. For a completed home, the İskan is the document that matters most. How much does proper developer due diligence cost? Most of the verification checks in this guide are free or cost only a small official document fee. The significant cost is the independent lawyer who runs and confirms them — typically around 1–2% of the purchase price. On a €180,000 apartment, that is a few thousand euros. Measured against the buyers who discovered 13.1 million lira in hidden mortgages after they had already paid, it is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy. The Bottom Line: Hire an Independent Lawyer Every check in this guide shares one principle: verify against the official record, never against the sales pitch. The parcel registry, the trade gazette, the municipality, the occupancy certificate, and the tax administration do not have a commission riding on your signature. The developer does. The thread that ties all five checks together is a single piece of advice: hire your own independent lawyer — one with no relationship to the developer, the agency, or the introducer who brought you the deal. Budget roughly 1–2% of the purchase price for proper legal due diligence. That lawyer will pull the Takyidat Belgesi, verify the building permit and İskan with the Belediye, confirm the company's standing in the registry, and validate any VAT-exemption claim with the GİB. In a market where fraud cases have surged 190% in four years, and where real buyers in Alanya have paid full price for apartments secretly mortgaged to the hilt, that 1–2% is not a cost. It is the difference between owning your property and merely paying for it.