Didim Today

What happens if you have purchased a property and there is already a tenant residing in it with a valid rental agreement? If you have purchased a property that is currently tenanted, you are not allowed to ask the tenant to evacuate the premises unless you need the premises as a place of residence or work for you and your spouse and children. You are only able to commence an action to evict six months after the date of notification.

You need to serve this notification within one month starting from the date of acquisition of the property. Default by the tenant is another situation where the landlord is allowed to request an eviction.

Namely, if the tenant fails to pay the rent when due and this occurs at least twice in one year and the tenant is served a notice twice in one year for this reason, then the landlord is able to start legal action for eviction at the end of the rental period.

Additionally, there is another way for eviction based on default, which is preferable if you don’t want to wait until the end of the rental period. The tenant must be granted 30 days of respite, or six days of respite in cases where the rental period is shorter than six months, notifying them to pay the rent. If payment is not received within the stated period, the landlord is able to commence legal action.

But if the tenant pays all the outstanding rent within this period, the landlord loses the right of eviction but still has the right to start an action following the second default as explained above.

The tenant cannot refuse to vacate the property if he/she or his/her spouse has a property for residence in the same town. Question: There is no condition about sub-tenancy in the rental agreement.

In other words we did not write a clause showing whether the tenant can sublet the property or not. Would he be able to sublet. What does Turkish law say about sublet matters?

Turkish law regulates this matter in detail. The statement is very clear. If there is no clause showing whether the tenant can sublet the property to any other tenant, then this shall mean that the tenant is not authorized to sublet the property. One should note that this clause only covers properties such as residences that are not sublet to any other persons under commercial practice.

This shall mean that, properties such as motels or student accommodation type of buildings are not covered by this clause. There is a very interesting topic that requires special attention.

Under Law 6570, the general rule is that the landlord doesn’t have right to terminate the agreement ex parte except for the extraordinary conditions mentioned above. Therefore, in practice it is only the tenant who has the right to terminate the agreement, notifying the landlord at least 15 days prior to the end of the term.

If no notice is given by the tenant (or by the landlord the power of notice by the landlord is limited with the acceptance of the tenant  this looks strange and I will explain this in another article), the agreement shall be automatically renewed. In other words, unless the tenant notifies the landlord of termination, the landlord will have the same tenant occupying the premises for one more year with the same conditions except for a reasonable increase in rent.

As I said, this needs special attention, and I will write an article about this topic in the coming weeks.

Berk Cektir http://www.berkcektir.av.tr/ The information provided here is intended to give basic legal information. You should get legal assistance from a licensed attorney at law while conducting legal transactions and not just rely on the information in this corner. http://www.todayszaman.com/ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it