A counter, not a courtroom
Most buyers picture transfer day the way they picture a court hearing: a room where something could still go wrong. Then they arrive at the Land Registry, the Tapu office, and find a counter. Behind it sits a clerk with a stack of files. In front of it stand you, the seller or their representative, and a folder of papers you have mostly seen before.
Here is the thing nobody says out loud: nothing new is negotiated on transfer day. Every document either already exists or is produced by the registry itself, and the day consists of those papers crossing the counter in a settled order. Once you know what each paper is, who hands it to whom and what to check before letting go of it, the anxiety has nowhere left to live. So here is the stack, paper by paper.
The purchase permit approval
The first paper is the one that made the day possible: the approval of your purchase permit, the permission a foreign buyer needs before title can pass. You or your lawyer applied for it long before, and the registry will not record a transfer without it, so its presence in the file is quiet proof that the state has already said yes.
Your lawyer or the clerk places it in the registry file. Before it disappears, check that your name matches your passport letter for letter, middle names included, and that the plot details match your contract. Keep a certified copy, because the original stays with the registry. If you are still waiting for a permit, the wait depends on the authorities' background checks, not on anything you can hurry at the counter.
Nothing new is negotiated on transfer day; it is a stack of papers crossing a counter in a settled order.
The contract of sale
Next comes the stamped contract of sale, commonly registered at the Land Registry soon after signing. On transfer day it is not signed again; it is matched. The clerk compares the parties, the price and the block and plot numbers against the transfer being recorded.
This is the moment to hold your copy beside the file copy and read the numbers aloud if you have to. A slipped digit in a plot reference is rare, but it is far cheaper to catch here than after the deed is issued. The registered contract remains part of the registry record; you keep your own signed original for as long as you own the property, because one day a future buyer's lawyer will ask to see it.
The valuation and the tax assessments
Before any money is taken, a valuation appears. The registry works from an assessed value of the property, and that figure, not automatically your contract price, is the base on which the taxes are calculated. The assessments themselves are short forms stating what is owed and by whom.
Ask one plain question, and ask it early: which figure are my taxes being calculated on, and can I see it in writing? If an assessor still has to confirm the valuation, the wait depends on their schedule and on the property itself, so this is the stage where a morning can stretch. Nothing about that pause is a bad sign. Keep a copy of every assessment; together they explain every payment you are about to make.
The receipts
Now money moves, and each payment comes back across the counter as a receipt. Treat the figures below as cautious planning ranges only, because rates change and reduced rates come and go. Confirm the current rates before you pay anything.
| Payment | Cautious planning range | Usually settled by |
|---|---|---|
| Transfer fee (devir harcı) | Historically several percent of the assessed value; reduced rates have applied at times to a first purchase | Buyer |
| Stamp duty | Around half a percent of the contract price, normally paid back at the contract stage | Buyer |
| VAT on a new build | Around five percent where it applies | As agreed in the contract |
| Registry and paperwork fees | Modest fixed sums | Buyer |
Check every receipt for your name and the parcel number before you fold it away, and never let a payment go unreceipted. These slips prove the taxes were paid, and a resale years from now can hinge on them.
Passports, and the power of attorney
The dullest papers on the counter are the ones most often forgotten. Everyone taking part has to prove identity, and anyone absent has to be properly represented.
- Passports for every buyer named on the permit and the contract, valid and physically present.
- If you are not attending, a power of attorney naming your representative, correctly notarised, and where it was made abroad, legalised or apostilled as required.
- The seller's side needs the same, and if a company is selling, the person signing must show authority to bind it.
Before you rely on a power of attorney, read its scope. It should permit taking title and paying taxes on your behalf, not merely signing a contract. Keep a certified copy of it; you will be surprised how often it is asked for afterwards.
The koçan, and the walk to the door
Last comes the paper the whole day exists for: the new title deed, the koçan, issued in your name. It is short, unremarkable to look at, and worth reading more carefully than anything else you will sign this year.
Before you leave the building, check four things: your name against your passport, the block and plot numbers against your contract, the share you hold, whole or fractional, and the annotations section, even if it looks empty. A mortgage that was supposed to be discharged shows up there, and an empty annotations field is exactly what you want to see. Then keep the koçan somewhere safer than a kitchen drawer.
If your own transfer day is still ahead of you, do two things now. Shortlist the ready properties below, where the deed is the next step rather than a distant one, and send our team the listing you are weighing up. We will set out the exact paper list for that purchase, so your day at the counter is as calm as this article.
