As I mentioned in my previous article last October, many news and rumors circulated on social media in recent months, which raised the fears of many Arab real estate investors in Turkey, especially investors of Syrian origin.
These news and rumors were as follows:
A new procedure and administrative order regarding real estate investors of Syrian origin.
A recent and common problem about real estate appraisal reports that show prices well below fair market prices.
A video clip of a politician claiming that the citizenship of Arab investors will be withdrawn if the government changes in Turkey in 2023.
In my previous article I also dealt with the first topic, and I reserved the other topics for the following articles.
However, since there are some important developments about Syrian real estate investors, I need to write about the same topic this month as well.
At the end of this article, I will address the topic mentioned in Article 2 (the problem related to real estate appraisal reports) because it does not actually need the large space that was granted to it.
So we will have two main titles in this article:
First: the latest developments regarding real estate investors of Syrian origin in Turkey.
Second: The latest developments related to real estate valuation reports in Turkey.
Investors who are originally Syrians, but who use another passport to apply for Turkish citizenship through real estate investment, have been forced, about two months ago, to sign an official document stating that they are “aware of the risks that their real estate will be confiscated by the Turkish authorities if their Syrian assets are discovered.” ".
What next for real estate investors of Syrian origin in Turkey?
Let us first remember some basic information: As it is known and mentioned in some of my previous articles for Al Jazeera Net, Syrians cannot legally own real estate in Turkey.
This is the reason why Syrian investors apply for Turkish citizenship through:
Various types of investments other than real estate investment (such as depositing $500 thousand in a Turkish bank).
Using any other passport to buy real estate in Turkey, if they have it, and most of them are passports of countries from Latin America and the Caribbean.
However, these investors, who are originally Syrians but who use another passport to apply for Turkish citizenship through real estate investment, have been forced, about two months ago, to sign an official document stating that they are “aware of the risks of having their properties confiscated by the authorities.” Turkish if their Syrian origins are discovered.
There is no doubt that this new procedure caused great confusion.
Soon after this measure was passed, images of a new administrative order handed over to the title deed registry office were posted on social media as the source for this new procedure.
It was a real and original document talking about the confiscation of the property of Syrian investors of foreign origin in Turkey.
This is why investors' bewilderment of Syrian assets suddenly turned into great panic and fear.
It was not an unjustified fear, and the content of the document was extremely vague.
As I mentioned in my previous article, we reached out to the top officials, and we challenged this new administrative order that could lead to some unconstitutional legal consequences. The right of ownership is a sacred right according to the Turkish constitution, and a possible expropriation of the property of Turkish citizens of Syrian origin may also conflict with the main legal principle of Turkish citizenship laws that consider naturalized citizens equal to other citizens in terms of enjoyment of rights. Fortunately, the Directorate of Title Deed Registration, which is the public institution responsible for all property sales in Turkey, took our concerns seriously and made some important attempts to clarify this worrying situation.
As the Title Deed Registration Directorate attempts to stem the growing fear and its potentially devastating effect on the real estate market, it has become clear that such an order will not include people of Syrian origin who have bought real estate in Turkey with another passport.
Senior officials made this promise to us, and I conveyed this message to my readers in my previous article.
However, it was also criticized that this promise was not enshrined in any new binding legal regulation that would invalidate the previous order.
This is why we insisted on our request to the Title Deed Registration Office Directorate to publish such a new order that clarifies all aspects and details of the legal status of foreign investors of Syrian origin and who hold multiple nationalities.
Finally, on November 16, this order was published by the Title Deed Registration Office Directorate, according to the following:
If a person of Syrian origin has already obtained Turkish citizenship, then the Syrian citizenship will not be taken into account in any real estate transaction, and the Turkish authorities will be based solely on Turkish citizenship.
Therefore, there will be no limitation or risk of expropriation of the property rights of that person.
This is certainly a right decision by the Turkish authorities, and any confiscation of these people's real estate would be completely unconstitutional.
However, as of November 16, 2021, foreign investors of Syrian origin who hold the nationality of another country (not Turkey) other than Syrian are not allowed to purchase real estate in Turkey based on their second nationality.
This new system will not affect the status of real estate originally purchased by foreign investors of Syrian origin, and these investors are still allowed to proceed with obtaining citizenship through investment procedures using their previous investments. Therefore, they can obtain Turkish citizenship through other investment methods such as depositing $500,000 in a Turkish bank.
Public authorities disclose the applicant's Syrian origin through documents submitted such as a birth certificate.
If the applicant can submit such documents of his second nationality, the risk still exists, because if the place of birth written on the passport is a Syrian city, the Turkish authorities will then assume that the applicant has Syrian citizenship and will inquire from him about any evidence that proves that he does not hold This nationality.
The type of documents that can be considered as evidence in this context is not clearly stated, but it could be, for example, the birth certificates of the applicant's parents showing that they were also not born in Syria.
If the management of the title deed registration office has any doubt about whether the foreign real estate investor holds Syrian citizenship but did not declare this while submitting the documents required to sell a property, then it can take a decision to suspend the sale to conduct further research on the foreign investor.
Has the "Assessment Report Problem" been resolved?
Let's first remember what the problem was: While foreign investors buy real estate in Turkey, it is mandatory to submit a real estate appraisal report that can only be prepared by licensed private appraisal companies. This is a precaution in favor of foreign investors. These evaluation reports are also submitted for the purpose of obtaining citizenship through real estate investment applications in order to confirm by the Turkish authorities that the investment in question is a truly sufficient investment of $250,000 or more.
Until last month, foreign investors were free to choose any valuation company they wanted and get a report from that company.
But with the aim of preventing some manipulations by private companies noticed by the public authorities, the Title Deed Registration Office Directorate decided to centralize the valuation report system, and prevented direct contact between foreign investors and those companies by creating a new online mechanism to accept the submission of valuation reports through an official website , then automatically assign evaluation firms to submit applications.
This mechanism should in fact have paved the way for a more fit system, but it just couldn't work as well, and somehow the valuation reports started showing prices significantly below fair market prices, putting many investors in a difficult position.
Based on the quick reaction of us and many other market players to this difficult situation, the Title Deed Registration Office management took immediate action to solve this problem: they urged all valuation companies and issued a new regulation to reorganize their valuation criteria.
The Title Deed Registration Office management has also decided to update the approved online mechanism and now gives foreign investors the option to choose their valuation company as they see fit, while they still have to submit their applications through the official website where all steps can be tracked by the Deed Registration Directorate Property.