The tapu certificate or an agent's copy does not show mortgages, seizures or annotations; only the current takyidat belgesi does. The rules below reflect the Civil Code and the Land Registry Regulation as published on the official legislation portal and the TKGM website on 4 November 2026.
Start from the register, not the tapu certificate
Under Article 1020 of the Turkish Civil Code No. 4721, the land register is open to everyone. Anyone who shows a credible interest may ask to see the registry page for a property or receive a copy of it, and no one may claim they did not know of an entry in the register.
Lawyers' commentaries from May and October 2026 advise checking the takyidat belgesi (encumbrance certificate) again shortly before the deal closes.
Use the open register before you hand over any money: request the registry page or a copy for the property you are buying. As of October 2026, treat the encumbrance certificate as the document that actually tells you what stands against the title.
Read the pledge column line by line
Under Article 31 of the Land Registry Regulation, pledges are recorded in the pledge column. Each pledge is marked with a letter starting from "A", and a mortgage is marked "İ". The entry names the creditor, the pledge amount, the interest rate if there is one, the degree, the term, the registration date and the journal number (yevmiye).
Banks register and remove mortgages electronically. In Web Tapu, under "Rehinler", the owner can see the mortgage amount or limit, its degree and the lending bank, and an electronic letter from the bank confirming removal (fek) appears there as well. Ask the seller to show you that screen, or rely on the current encumbrance certificate.
Do not read the mortgage limit as the remaining debt. One lawyer's commentary, as of 28 September 2026, notes that the mortgage amount in the register is not the outstanding balance and is usually higher than the loan amount, so the current early repayment figure should be requested from the bank in writing.
Read the annotations column too
The annotations column (şerhler) is not decorative. Under Article 46 of the Land Registry Regulation, it can contain personal rights, annotations that restrict or prohibit disposal of the property, annotations of temporary registration and other information required by law.
Because these entries can limit or block a sale, read the annotations column alongside the pledge column before you decide anything. The column tells you what burdens the property beyond debt, and it is part of the same current encumbrance certificate you should be checking.
Find out whether a paid or expired mortgage can be struck off
Under Article 883 of the Turkish Civil Code, once the debt is paid the owner can demand that the creditor remove the mortgage from the register.
If the mortgage was set for a term and no annotation under Article 150/c of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law was entered within 30 days after that term expired, the land registry removes the mortgage on the owner's application. That is the narrow route to a clean pledge column when the mortgage has run its course.
Check for seizures and whether they can still be enforced
Public-debt seizures — those filed by the tax office, the Social Security Institution or similar bodies — are entered electronically. The TKGM page on electronic seizure says an owner sees them in Web Tapu or e-Devlet under Şerhler/Beyanlar, under the heading Haciz, with the seizing authority, the date, the journal number and the amount claimed.
Under paragraph 5 of Article 69 of the Land Registry Regulation, a seizure is removed on the owner's application if no extension is reported to the registry within two years of the annotation. But age alone does not decide: the two-year removal rule does not apply to public-debt seizures under Law No. 6183, bankruptcy, concordat or an annotation under Article 150/c of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law.
So before you treat a seizure as lapsed, check which authority filed it and whether one of those exceptions applies. For a public-debt seizure, ask the seller to show the Haciz entry from their Web Tapu or e-Devlet account, and compare it with the current encumbrance certificate.
Check whether a promise-to-sell annotation is still live
Under Article 26 of the Tapu Law No. 2644, a notarised promise of sale can be annotated in the land register at the request of either side. The annotation appears in the şerhler column and tells anyone reading the register that a promise to sell exists.
If the sale does not happen within five years of the annotation date, the registry officer removes the annotation by office. So when you get the takyidat belgesi, look at the annotation date: a promise older than five years should have been struck off, but confirm that the registry actually removed it before you move forward.
On sale day, clear the mortgage before the transfer
A mortgage does not clear automatically when the flat is sold. According to a lawyer's commentary and a real-estate agency's publication, as of 4 October 2026, the usual practice is to repay the seller's bank debt with part of the buyer's payment; the bank then notifies the land registry that the mortgage is released, and ownership transfers the same day.
The arrangement to avoid is one where the seller only promises to pay off the debt after the sale. Lawyers' analyses, as of 22 October 2026, call this the riskiest option for the buyer. It is safer to have the mortgage removed before the transfer or to use a blocked payment, where the buyer's money is held in a blocked bank account and released to the seller only once the mortgage is cleared and the transfer is done.