Source Freshness Review — Family Residence Annotation
Family-residence status is fact-sensitive and time-sensitive. Turkish Civil Code article 194 limits a spouse’s ability to terminate the lease of the family residence, transfer it or restrict rights over it without the other spouse’s explicit consent. The non-owner spouse may request a family-residence annotation in the land register. For a buyer, the source-freshness question is therefore broader than “is there an annotation today?” The file must also consider whether the factual and marital circumstances that support family-residence protection are current.
Refresh the registry and the personal-status evidence
Obtain a current land-registry record for the exact property. If an annotation is present, record its date and reference. Separately verify current marital status and residence evidence using the documents accepted by the competent authorities. TKGM guidance refers to residence-place evidence and civil-registration evidence and, where necessary, supporting documents that match the residence information to the cadastral property. An old residence certificate or an old registry extract may no longer describe the situation at the transaction date.
Match the home to the exact property
The address used in civil records must be reconciled to the block, parcel and independent unit in the land register. Apartment numbering, address updates, cadastral changes or building records can make a superficial address match unreliable. When TKGM guidance calls for additional evidence from municipality, neighbourhood administration, cadastral office, apartment management or LİHKAB, the purpose is to establish that the home being asserted is the same immovable property recorded in the registry.
Do not treat absence of annotation as a universal safe harbour
For transaction due diligence, an empty annotation field should not be converted into the legal conclusion “family-residence rules cannot apply.” Article 194 is the substantive rule, while the annotation is an important registry mechanism. Where facts indicate that the property is the spouses’ regular family home, obtain transaction-specific legal review of the consent requirement and registry process rather than relying only on a screenshot showing no annotation.
Identify events that make evidence stale
Marriage, divorce, death, a change of regular residence, a new annotation, a court measure, a change in the property used as the family home, or a cadastral/address correction can all change the analysis. TKGM states that after divorce the former marital union no longer supports placing a family-residence annotation. That illustrates why personal-status evidence must be current.
Refresh before commitment and transfer
Update the registry and relevant status evidence before a non-refundable payment, when a seller’s marital or residence facts change, and close to title transfer if family-residence risk is material. Record the check date, source and reviewer. If consent or another legal step is required, convert it into a written closing condition rather than an informal assurance.
Freshness conclusion
The source package is sufficiently fresh when it reflects the current land register, current marital status, current residence facts and a reliable match between the household address and the exact property. The review should leave a reproducible conclusion about what was checked and why the transaction can proceed.
Official sources
- Turkish Civil Code No. 4721, article 194.
- TKGM — Tapu Sicili Tüzüğü.
- TKGM — Family Residence Annotation FAQ and 2014/4 circular.