ISKAN – Approval from the Turkish State Commitee of a property

Of course, we all know that when buying real property in Turkey, the most important document is — the TAPU. However, when choosing real estate there is another important point that many do not know or forget: has the property been approved by the state committee? The confirmation that a property has been approved by the state committee in Turkey is ISKAN.

In the past, there were 2 documents: genel ISKAN (an analogue of the certificate of the approval of real property by the state commission, the developer would assume the formalities for its issuance) and ferdi ISKAN (an analogue of a technical passport for real property, the owner of the project would assume the formalities for its issuance).

More than 20 years ago, the presence of any of these documents was rarely checked by the authorities and the buyer, and therefore over 70% of real properties did not have them. This situation suited both developers and buyers, as both sides received significant savings, because the cadastral value of a property without ISKAN was much lower, and, correspondingly, the amount of tax payable when buying was quite modest too.

Gradually, the state was improving and toughening many laws, requirements and procedures, and in 2014 developers were compelled to ensure the approval of a real property for commissioning and obtain only one document that became known as simply ISKAN.

Along with this requirement they also introduced control. Now, without ISKAN it is impossible to connect a new real property to the urban water supply and power supply, as well as the gas line. However, developers did not run immediately to obtain necessary documents. And, unfortunately, in the market there are still many objects that do not have ISKAN. That is why, for your own safety when buying real property in Turkey, it is important to work with a professional real estate agency that will save you from unpleasant surprises when buying a home.

At Izmir Estate we carefully examines all documents and sells completed real estate only with ISKAN, and projects under construction – only from reliable developers with which it has worked for many years and which, during that time, have commissioned many objects.