TÜRKIYE Law and Practice Contributed by: Serkan Gül, Nazım Kurt and Türkay Avanaş, Hergüner Bilgen Üçer Attorney Partnership
been rented to another lessee under similar condi - tions. Both Parties’ Right to Terminate Both parties may terminate the lease if generally appli - cable contract termination grounds arise. 6.20 Registration Requirements Lease agreements are not subject to any form require - ment, but written lease agreements are market prac - tice. Turkish law enables the annotation of lease agreements in the land registry records of the leased property. Annotation gives full protection against evic - tion if the relevant property is transferred to a third party. Deed registry fees amounting to 0.683% of the total lease amount would accrue together with a fixed contribution amount (approximately TRY6,730). 6.21 Forced Eviction A tenant may be evicted prior to the originally agreed date if the grounds for termination discussed in 6.19 Right to Terminate a Lease arise. In such an event, eviction proceedings typically take one to one-and- a-half years. In the event of eviction for failure to pay rent, a land - lord may also seek to have the tenant evicted by way of execution proceedings. The execution office would serve a payment order on the tenant in such a case and, upon failure to pay within 30 days, begin the pro - cess to evict. This procedure is notably faster than eviction by court order. Both eviction processes may be subject to appeal, and the eviction order can be suspended while the appeal is pending. 6.22 Termination by a Third Party A government agency may be able to terminate a lease only in exceptional circumstances. One such instance may be when the leased real estate is sub - ject to condemnation. In the event of condemnation, the lessee does not receive compensation from the government. Another such instance is if the leased property is going to be subject to demolition under the scope of the Urban Regeneration Law. In such an event, the lessee would be given a total of 90 days to vacate the premises and would be evicted by the
government upon failure to voluntarily surrender the property. 6.23 Remedies/Damages for Breach If a tenant breaches the lease agreement, the landlord will be able to claim damages. For certain breaches (such as using the property against the purpose of the lease and failure to timely pay the rent), the landlord may terminate the lease agreement and evict the ten - ant. For eviction, the landlord has no remedy other than initiating a lawsuit or enforcement proceedings. Furthermore, in workplace and residential leases, landlords typically demand that tenants guaran - tee their obligations by posting a cash deposit or a bank letter of guarantee. The Turkish Code of Obliga - tions has introduced a quantitative limitation in this respect that the security deposits cannot exceed three months’ rent. If the parties agreed on cash or negotia - ble instruments as a security, the tenant must deposit the money in a time deposit account and deposit the negotiable instruments in a bank – not to be with - drawn without the consent of the landlord. The bank may return the security only (i) with the consent of both parties, (ii) upon finalisation of the enforcement proceedings, or (iii) on the basis of a finalised court decision. If the landlord has not informed the bank in writing that they filed a lawsuit against the tenant in relation to the lease agreement or that they have initiated debt enforcement proceedings within three months of ter - minating the lease agreement, the bank is obliged to return the security upon the request of the tenant. In practice, parties breach the law and usually decide to pay cash or deliver a bank letter of guarantee to the landlord instead of following the above procedure. 7. Construction 7.1 Common Structures Used to Price Construction Projects Structures used in the global market (turnkey and cost-plus-profit) are also used in the Turkish market. Turnkey structures are commonly used in public ten - ders. For private deals, turnkey or cost-plus-profit
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