Didim Today

Building or property management rules and what you need to know to setting rules. I received a lengthy letter from a reader, Robert, last week and responded to some of the questions. It is an interesting topic and deserves more than one article to address it. Here is a part of the letter from Robert. Needless to say that for those who are interested, the full version is available at the Today’s Zaman website legal corner archive.

“Mr. Berk Çektir, I always read your articles in Today’s Zaman and I think I’ve learned a little from you about the way things work in Turkey. After reading your recent article about Turkish flat owners’ law, I thought you might be able to answer a few questions that I’ve been pondering. I own a flat in Adana and being a foreigner with very limited Turkish makes it difficult to get answers to my questions.

“…[Question 3:] If we do set up some formal rules, is it possible to establish penalties for breaking the rules? I’ve noticed that it’s not unusual for someone to break a rule and say, ‘Sorry, I didn’t know,’ then shrug his shoulders and go on.

“Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to your future articles. Robert Wilson”

For monetary rules such as payment of maintenance fees, there is already a high interest rate established by law. It should be 10 percent per month. Therefore only this high rate should be quite a sanction for non-paying tenants or landlords.

In addition, you may always seek legal relief for losses caused by noncompliant tenants or landlords. To be more precise, monetary sanctions can be applied once there is a financial loss or damage that can be articulated in terms of money.

There are also administrative sanctions against the violation of management rules — if I may give an example, such as the drying of clothes on the balcony. The manager of the building may report this matter to the municipality and the municipality may impose a fine on the violator.

I understand that your goal is not to collect money from people by imposing penalties but rather to make these rules more effective. It is a simple equation — if there is no sanction, then people are more likely to violate the rules. Academically speaking, it is possible to set some penalties, but these will always be challenged by tenants or landlords.

However, my educated guess is that even if you set some penalties, a tenant or landlord will violate them anyway. In the event of a violation, management should execute its duty of imposing this agreed uponpenalty. Otherwise, in failing to exercise this power management loses its authority. When management executes this sanction, the violator may respond by taking the matter to court.

Instead of losing time and money on this, I would say that it would be more effective to use the rules and sanctions. These rules are already in place and ready for use. It is not appropriate for management to apply monetary f?nes to someone who is drying his clothes on the balcony.

I would say the above mentioned should be satisfactory for the proper management of a building.

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