As of March 23, 2021, there are some important changes in the Turkish citizenship through investment rules, and the majority of these changes are related to real estate investments.

Therefore, foreigners who plan to make real estate investments in Turkey in order to obtain Turkish citizenship should be more careful after those changes, given that they impose some important restrictions on the eligibility of real estate investment for citizenship applications.

According to the literal meaning of this new rule, a Turkish woman married to a foreigner will not be able to sell his / her properties to a foreign investor seeking to obtain Turkish citizenship.

In addition, the foreign investor will now have to verify whether the Turkish property owner is married to a foreigner, which seems annoying to both sides.

In other words, unfortunately, the nationality process is now more complicated.

For this reason, foreign investors now more than ever need to cooperate with legal experts to complete their investments and smoothly finalize the citizenship application process.

Here are the recent changes:

1- Even before the changes, it was not really allowed to buy property from a foreigner.

Foreign investors investing in order to obtain Turkish citizenship had to buy real estate from Turks, as this rule still applies.

On the other hand, there is now an additional rule stating that buying property from a partner and children of a foreign person also will not be permitted.

According to the literal meaning of this new rule, a Turkish woman married to a foreigner will not be able to sell his / her properties to a foreign investor seeking to obtain Turkish citizenship.

In addition, the foreign investor will now have to verify whether the Turkish property owner is married to a foreigner, which seems annoying to both sides.

If understood in this way, this rule would greatly restrict people born in Turkey.

For this reason, I believe, the legislator intended something else with this new rule, and therefore, it should be interpreted in a different way.

However, we have not been able to clarify this point yet.

Therefore, it must be admitted that this new clause is currently confusing, and soon we will be able to get more clarification on this topic.

2- If a foreigner sells a property to a Turkish, then the Turkish sells it to a new foreign investor, this will not be a problem for the last investor, as he can use those real estate to apply for citizenship.

However, there are new and important restrictions on this possibility now: If the former foreign property owner (before the Turkish property owner) holds the same nationality as the last foreign property owner (the last investor), then the last investor is considered unable to use this property in the citizenship application, despite He has already acquired the property from a Turkish person.

On the other hand, there is an additional condition for this restriction to be valid: the sale should be between the former foreign property owner and the Turkish property owner after the date of January 12, 2017. And if the first transfer of the property was before this date, then there will be no problem. For the last investor.

Let's make it happen:

There was an Egyptian (Ahmed) who owned a property in Istanbul, then sold it to a Turkish company on January 15, 2017. In June 2021, another Egyptian (Rashad) decided to buy this property from the current Turkish property owner.

In this case, Rashad will not be able to apply for citizenship through this property.

And in the event that Rashad is not Egyptian but Moroccan, or if the first sale was not on January 15, 2017, but on January 11, 2017, Rashad will be able to use this drug for nationality purposes.

3- If a foreign investor buys real estate from a Turkish company, it should not be among the partners of that company who has the nationality of the investor, and this means that the investor must verify the recent partnership structure of the Turkish real estate company from which he / she buys the property.

Previously, this restriction was only directed to companies in which the investor, his wife / husband, or his / her children are partners.

For the time being, the scope of the restriction has been expanded.

Let's make it happen:

Ahmed (Egyptian) bought an apartment from the "XXX" Company Ltd. in Istanbul.

There are two partners in the "XXX" Company Ltd.: Selim (Turkish) and Rashad (Egyptian).

Therefore, Ahmed will not be able to use this property to apply for citizenship due to Rashad's presence within the company as a partner.

5- Perhaps the most important change is that the real estate that was previously used as an investment eligible for citizenship application cannot be used again for another application.

In the event that only one share of those real estate is used for the purpose of obtaining citizenship, this share will not be eligible again, compared to the rest of the shares.

6- There is another sensitive and vague rule that will create some risks for foreign investors: If the property that was used to apply for citizenship is sold to the previous owner again after the end of the 3-year ban period, the Turkish Citizenship Office will be able to inquire about the sale process to determine what If there is a fraudulent sale, arrange in advance between the two parties.

In the event that the Turkish authorities conclude that the sale was a prior arrangement and was a fraud, then they will be able to revoke the citizenship retroactively.

I personally criticize this new rule.

Initially, foreign investors have the right to sell the property after 3 years according to the law.

Therefore, it does not matter whether the property is resold to the previous owner or someone else.

Second, Al Qaeda does not provide any other details, and we cannot know the manner in which this investigation will be conducted and the criteria upon which the authorities will conclude that there is a fraudulent sale.

Al Qaeda's current language conflicts with the basic principle of "the legality of sanctions."

I hope there will be more clarity in the future about this condition.

Currently, the safest option for foreign investors, who acquired Turkish citizenship and the associated three-year period has expired, is not to sell their properties again to the previous owners.

7- As it is known, initial real estate sales contracts are eligible investments for Turkish citizenship.

These contracts are concluded for real estate projects under construction that cannot be subject to sales contracts at that time.

In the event that the initial real estate sale contract was used for the purpose of citizenship, and if the real estate project is not completed until the end of the three-year period from the ban, then the investor can sell (transfer) his contract to a third party (another investor).

This step usually does not harm the procedures for obtaining citizenship that the foreign investor has ended.

On the other hand, the new restrictions change this situation, and in the event of a similar sale, the Turkish Citizenship Office can open an investigation into this transfer to understand whether there is a fraudulent transfer arranged in advance between the two parties.

In the event that the Turkish authorities conclude that the transfer of the initial real estate sale contract was arranged and fraudulent, they will be able to revoke the citizenship retroactively.

All of my criticisms made regarding Condition # 6 are also in line with Condition # 7.

8- While selling the property, the foreign investor must declare that there is no incorrect fraud document presented.

And in case there is any document, he will bear the full responsibility.

In fact, even without adopting this condition, there was a legal basis enabling the Turkish authorities to revoke the Turkish citizenship granted to a foreigner in the event of submitting any incorrect or forged document.

With the imposition of such a condition, the Turkish authorities provide direct evidence of the general liability of the investor.

In this regard, foreign investors in particular should refrain from manipulative property price appraisal reports.

In conclusion, I must admit that the new changes have placed a great deal of additional burden on foreign investors and their lawyers.

With the new changes, obtaining Turkish citizenship through real estate investment procedures requires more efforts to be cautious.

Moreover, some of the new rules can be criticized for being restrictive and vague without justification.

The uncertainty that will result from these rules will exhaust the energy of foreign investors and lawyers until matters are clarified further, which is the reason why working with competent legal experts in this field is safer for foreign investors.

Their law should include conducting a serious initial study of the intended investment first and then confirming its compliance with legal requirements.