TÜRKİYE Law and Practice Contributed by: Serkan Gül, Nazım O Kurt and Türkay Avanaş, Hergüner Bilgen Üçer Attorney Partnership
mercial leases, though there are no drafts avail - able yet. 6.3 Regulation of Rents or Lease Terms Rentals are freely negotiable under lease agree - ments. However, certain lease terms, such as eviction, rent increase, etc, are specifically regu - lated under the Turkish Code of Obligations as mandatory terms. Turkish Code of Obligations The application of some of these mandatory terms was postponed for eight years when the Turkish Code of Obligations came into force on 1 July 2012 for merchants and private and public legal entities. As the eight-year period expired on 1 July 2020, these provisions became applicable to merchants and private and public legal enti - ties as well. Such provisions are mostly consid - ered to protect tenants against landlords, which provides certain limitations with regards to the lease agreement. For instance, the most promi - nent ones stipulate that obligations regarding additional payments other than rent and ancillary costs cannot be imposed on tenants and pen - alty clauses for failure to pay and acceleration clauses will be deemed invalid. A piece of legislation enacted in 2018 prohib - its denominating rental fees in foreign currency under certain conditions. This legislation applies to lease agreements where the lessor is a for - eign capital company, but it is still possible to denominate rents in foreign currency in lease agreements where the tenant is a foreign real person, foreign company, or a company owned by foreign investors. 6.4 Typical Terms of a Lease There is no minimum or maximum limit for lease terms. In practice, the terms of leases for resi - dential property are generally agreed to as one
year compared to five years or more for commer - cial assets. The owner of the real estate should carry out the structural maintenance while the lessee is responsible for daily maintenance. Par - ties may contractually agree otherwise. The parties generally agree to the frequency of rental payments as a monthly payment, but the parties may also determine the term of rent as quarterly or annually. In commercial leases, rent may be expressed as a fixed amount or as a fixed percentage of revenues derived from the use of the property. Market practice tends to combine the two, with payable rent being set at whichever of the two is higher. It is also customary to introduce force majeure clauses in lease agreements. Before the COV - ID-19 pandemic, most force majeure provisions addressed the risk of leased property being damaged by an act of God, in which case the lessor is relieved from its duties to keep the prop - erty in operable condition. Now that the market has suffered the effects of the pandemic, lease agreements entered into recently include pan - demics as a force majeure event to the extent that they preclude the tenant from using the leased property. 6.5 Rent Variation As per the Turkish Code of Obligations, if the rent is agreed to in TRY, the rent may be increased according to the consumer price index (12 months’ average), but not higher. Rent may not be increased within the first five-year period if the rent is agreed to in foreign currency. Please see 1.2 Main Market Trends and Deals for the rent variation cap applicable for residential leas - es until 1 July 2024.
1004 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook