What must be rechecked in the lease file on closing day
Lease due diligence performed weeks before transfer can become stale. A tenant may pay another month’s rent, sign an amendment, send a notice, enter mediation, agree to leave, or actually vacate. Closing-day review is therefore a narrow current-state check. It does not repeat the entire legal analysis. It verifies the small set of facts that can change the money, possession or documents being transferred that day.
Confirm the lease has not changed since the last approved version
Ask for a written confirmation of any document signed after the buyer’s last review. Compare the current lease index with the frozen reference set: contract, amendments, rent-change documents, deposit evidence, notices and dispute records. If a new document appears, stop treating the old summary as current. Record the new date and determine whether the change affects price, expected income, vacant possession or the buyer’s approval conditions.
Cut off rent accurately at the transfer date
Update the rent ledger through closing. Verify the most recent payment in the bank record, the period it covers and whether any amount was paid in advance for time after ownership transfers. Article 314 of the Turkish Code of Obligations provides the general payment rule subject to contract and local custom. The closing statement should allocate money by the actual rental period, not merely by the day cash happened to arrive. Any arrears must be identified as collected, outstanding, disputed or subject to enforcement.
Confirm the tenant security before the seller receives the balance price
Check the agreed security amount, documentary proof and current holder. For residential and roofed workplace leases, Article 342 limits agreed security to three months’ rent and contains rules for money or negotiable instruments given as security. The parties to the sale should make the handling of that tenant liability explicit in the closing accounts. A seller’s statement that “the tenant has no deposit” should not override a contract or receipt showing otherwise.
Reconfirm who physically possesses the property
Closing day is the last practical moment to correct a false occupancy assumption before title transfers. If the property is sold with a tenant, confirm that the identified tenant or authorized occupant remains in possession and record the planned landlord communication after transfer. If the sale is priced as vacant, verify actual vacancy, keys and handover rather than relying on an expected move-out. Article 310 is especially important: transfer of ownership generally puts the buyer into the landlord position; it does not itself eliminate the existing lease.
Check every late notice or eviction-related development
Ask whether any notice, written evacuation undertaking, mediation application, enforcement file or court document has been created since the previous review. Article 352 gives specific legal significance to a written undertaking to vacate made after delivery, but the actual wording, date and procedural status matter. Rental disputes are generally subject to mandatory pre-litigation mediation in Türkiye with statutory exceptions. A newly opened file may therefore alter the expected possession timetable even if no judgment exists.
Issue a short closing certificate for the lease file
The final internal note should state the lease version reviewed, current tenant, current rent, latest payment period, security status, occupancy status, late documents and unresolved exceptions. It should be dated the same day as the title transfer. Do not use it to rewrite the contract or make legal conclusions that the evidence does not support. Its purpose is operational: ensure that the buyer signs and pays on the basis of the lease that actually exists at closing, not the lease that existed when negotiations started.