Aidat is the word on the first invoice a foreign owner receives after the deed, and it is usually the first Turkish word they learn to resent. It means the monthly contribution to the building's common expenses, and everything about it, who sets it, how it is split, what happens if you do not pay, and whether your empty flat pays at all, is governed by the Condominium Law of 1965, a statute that also decides who manages the building, how owners vote, what a proxy may do for an owner abroad, and how a residential complex of several blocks is run. Foreign owners tend to meet the law through its enforcement side, when a manager's lawyer writes about arrears, or through its voting side, when a decision they never heard of has been taken about the pool. In my files the manager's letter has usually arrived before the owner has ever read the management plan. This page sets out the machinery from the statute as amended in May 2026, for the owner who is rarely there.
Sources, checked 9 September 2026. Condominium Law No. 634, Articles 20, 22, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 42, 45, 66, 67, 69, 70 and 72, as amended by Law 7579 of 7 May 2026; Law No. 6325 on Mediation in Civil Disputes, Article 18/B as added by Law 7445 of 2023.
What aidat is, and how the law splits it
Article 20 of the Condominium Law is the whole of the aidat rule, and it is shorter than most owners expect. Unless the owners have agreed otherwise among themselves, each unit owner contributes equally to the wages of the caretaker, boiler operator, gardener and guard and to the advances collected for them, and contributes in proportion to their land share to the building's insurance premiums, to the maintenance, protection, strengthening and repair of all common parts, to the manager's salary and similar expenses, and to the running costs of common facilities. The land share is the fraction assigned to each unit when the condominium was established, recorded on the title, and it, not the floor area or the number of bedrooms, is the statutory key for most of the bill.
The article then closes the argument that empty flats make. An owner may not refuse to pay their share of expenses or advances by waiving the use of a common part or facility, or by claiming that the situation of their unit means they have no need of it. A foreign owner who visits for six weeks a year pays the same share of the lift, the pool and the garden as the neighbour who lives there, and the summer villa owner in a complex whose management plan allocates costs by land share pays for the winter heating of the clubhouse. The only way to a different split is an agreement among the owners, which in practice means the management plan.
Article 72 extends the same logic to residential complexes: expenses of common parts that serve only some buildings are borne by the owners in those buildings, and expenses of parts that serve the whole complex by all owners, and no owner may refuse by arguing that the facility is on another parcel, on public land, or of no use to them.
Who sets the amount: the budget and the 2026 change
The annual amount is set through the operating budget, the işletme projesi, under Article 37, which Law 7579 rewrote in May 2026. The budget is now approved by the general assembly of owners; where no approved budget exists, the manager draws up a provisional budget without delay, to stand until the assembly approves one within at most three months. The budget must show the estimated income and expenses for a year of management, the estimated share of each owner under Article 20, and the advance each owner must pay. It is notified to the owners, or to those actually using the units, against signature or by registered letter, and the assembly must decide within three months whether to adopt it as it stands or with changes.
The 2026 amendment added a cap that foreign owners in professionally managed complexes should know. Where a budget already exists, a provisional budget may not exceed the amount of the budget in force by more than the revaluation rate published under the Tax Procedure Law for the previous year, applied from the start of the calendar year. A manager who wishes to raise the aidat by more than inflation must now take the increase to the assembly rather than impose it provisionally.
A budget once final, or an assembly resolution on operating expenses, counts under Article 37 as one of the documents on which enforcement proceedings may be based directly, and Article 72 gives the same status to the resolutions of block assemblies and complex representatives. That is why a manager can send an enforcement order for arrears without first obtaining a judgment.
Not paying: five per cent a month, the tenant, and the legal mortgage
Article 20 fixes the cost of falling behind. An owner who does not pay their share of expenses or advances owes default compensation at five per cent per month for the days of delay, and may be pursued by the manager or by any other owner through an action or enforcement proceedings. Five per cent a month is sixty per cent a year, uncompounded, and it is not a contractual rate that a court can reduce; it is the statute.
Article 22 widens the net. Anyone who continuously benefits from the unit, a tenant, a holder of a right of residence or anyone in occupation on another basis, is jointly and severally liable with the owner for the owner's share and the default compensation, the tenant's liability being limited to the rent they owe, which they may then deduct from the rent. A foreign owner whose tenant is paying the aidat directly should know that the tenant is doing so because the law makes the tenant liable, and that the owner remains liable behind them; the rest of the landlord's position is on the landlord page.
If the debt cannot be collected that way, Article 22 provides the remedy that surprises owners abroad most: on the written request of the manager or of any owner, a legal mortgage for the amount of the debt found by the court is registered against the defaulting owner's unit in favour of the other owners, and the owners' claim for unpaid contributions ranks ahead of other claims. An owner who has not opened the post for three years may find, when they come to sell, a mortgage on the register that must be cleared at the deed, and default compensation that has outgrown the principal. The seller's side of that discovery is on the selling page.
The management plan: the contract you did not sign but are bound by
Article 28 makes the management plan, the yönetim planı, a contract binding all owners and their successors, universal and particular. It regulates the manner of management, the purpose and manner of use of the property, the remuneration of the manager and auditors and everything else the owners choose to put in it. A buyer takes the plan as it is; its date and any amendments are noted in the declarations column of the register, and the document itself is kept with the condominium's founding papers. Changing it requires the votes of four fifths of all owners, and in a complex, under Article 70, two thirds of the units represented on the complex representatives' council. Law 7579 added to Article 70 that provisions of a management plan contrary to that article are not applied.
Two provisions in the plan concern foreign owners more than any other. The allocation of expenses, which may depart from Article 20 and often does in resort complexes, and the rules on use, which under Article 24 may not be softened below the statute: a unit registered as a residence may not be used as a hospital, clinic or laboratory, and may be used as a cinema, restaurant, bar, workshop, shop or similar only with a unanimous resolution of the owners. The tourism letting regime described on the short-term rental page sits on top of this, and requires its own unanimous consent under a different law; the two votes are not the same vote.
Meetings, quorums and the proxy for the owner abroad
Under Article 29 the assembly of owners meets at least once a year, at the time fixed in the management plan or otherwise in the first month of the calendar year; in complexes, at least every two years. An extraordinary meeting may be called by the manager, the auditor or one third of the owners, on at least fifteen days' notice signed for or sent by registered letter, stating the reason. The first notice must state where and when the second meeting will be held if the first lacks a quorum, and the two meetings must be at least seven days apart.
Article 30 sets the quorum: more than half of the owners by number and by land share, deciding by majority; if the first meeting fails for want of quorum, the second is held within fifteen days and decides by the simple majority of those present. Article 31 gives each owner one vote regardless of land share, an owner of several units one vote per unit but never more than one third of all votes, and the several owners of one unit a single vote cast by one of them under a proxy. The last paragraph of Article 31 is the one an owner abroad needs: an owner may vote through an authorised proxy, but no one person may hold proxies for more than five per cent of the votes, except that in buildings of forty units or fewer one person may act for at most two owners. In a two-hundred-unit complex the manager cannot collect the foreign owners' proxies and vote them; in a twelve-unit building your neighbour can carry your vote and one other.
Under Article 32 resolutions are entered in a notarised minute book and signed by those present, dissenters recording their reasons, and bind all owners and their successors. Under Article 33 an owner who attended and dissented may sue to annul a resolution within one month of it, and an owner who did not attend within one month of learning of it and in any case within six months, before the civil peace court of the place where the property is; void resolutions may be challenged without time limit. Since September 2023, under Article 18/B of the Mediation Law, that action, like every other dispute under the Condominium Law, begins with a compulsory mediation application, a step that must be fitted inside the one-month window.
Article 42 governs improvements and additions to common parts: they require a majority of owners by number and by land share, and, since 2005, alterations needed for a disabled person's life follow a special procedure. Article 45 requires unanimity for the acts that change the property itself, such as encumbering it, dividing the land or letting the facade or roof for advertising. Decisions about strengthening or demolishing a building found to be at earthquake risk follow a different set of majorities, set out on the earthquake law page.
The manager: appointment, powers and the empty flat
Article 34 requires a manager where a building has eight or more units; the owners may appoint one of themselves, an outsider or a three-person board, by a majority of owners both by number and by land share, renewed each year at the annual meeting. Where the owners cannot agree, any owner may ask the civil peace court to appoint one. Under Article 38 the manager is liable to the owners as an agent, and actions to annul assembly resolutions are brought against the manager as the owners' representative.
Article 35 lists the manager's duties unless the plan says otherwise: to carry out the assembly's resolutions, to protect, maintain and repair the property, to insure it, to collect advances for management, maintenance and running costs in the month fixed by the plan or otherwise in January, to receive and make the payments of the management, to accept notices addressed to the property as a whole, to take the steps needed to prevent the loss of a time limit or a right, and, if authorised, to collect the rents of the units. In a complex, Articles 66 to 72 add a second layer: each block is managed by its own assembly for its own common parts, the parcel or block by an assembly for shared parts, and the complex as a whole under a single management plan, with a representatives' council where the plan so provides.
For the owner who is rarely there, three practical consequences follow from these articles. Notices to the property as a whole reach the manager, not you, so your own address on the manager's file is what decides whether you hear of a meeting, a budget or a claim. The manager's authority to collect your rent exists only if the assembly gave it. And the manager is your agent in law, which means the manager owes you accounts and can be replaced by the assembly, but also that the manager's lawful acts bind you as if they were yours. The aidat is not the only recurring charge on the flat; the annual property tax, which the manager does not collect, is described on the property tax page.
The owner's checklist before and after buying
| What to obtain or do | Why | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The management plan and its amendments | It is a contract binding you; it may allocate costs differently from the statute | Art. 28, 70 |
| The current operating budget and your unit's land share | The budget fixes the aidat; the land share fixes your fraction | Art. 20, 37 |
| A statement of arrears on the unit | The legal mortgage and 5% monthly compensation follow the unit to the deed | Art. 20, 22 |
| Your notification address on the manager's file | Meeting notices and budgets are served on it | Art. 29, 37 |
| A proxy within the limits | Five per cent of votes per proxy holder, or two owners in buildings of forty units or fewer | Art. 31 |
| Knowledge of the vote thresholds | Simple majority for improvements, four fifths to change the plan, unanimity for encumbrances and change of use | Art. 24, 28, 42, 45 |
| The one-month clock | Annulment of a resolution, after a mediation application | Art. 33; Law 6325 Art. 18/B |
Whose side we are on, and how we are paid
The professional management company in a resort complex is paid from the aidat it sets, and its lawyer is paid from the arrears it collects. The developer who wrote the management plan wrote it before any owner existed. None of that is misconduct; it is a description of why the allocation of costs in your complex favours the people who drafted it, and why the enforcement order arrives before the explanation.
We take no commission or referral fee from managers, management companies or developers, in any form, on any file. The fee you pay us is our only income from your matter, and it does not depend on whether you pay, contest or negotiate the aidat. Because our position does not move with the building's politics, telling you that the budget increase was lawfully adopted, or that it was not, or that the proxy you signed exceeds the statutory limit, costs us nothing to say.
One boundary, stated plainly. We are lawyers, not licensed investment advisers and not property managers. We do not run buildings and we do not tell you whether the aidat is good value. What we protect is the legal position: what you owe under the statute and the plan, how it was decided, and the deadlines for contesting it.
Before the next annual meeting
Send us the management plan, the last budget and the manager's latest statement. We will tell you what your unit lawfully owes and on what key, whether the budget was adopted in the way the 2026 law requires, what your proxy may and may not do, and, if there is an arrears claim, what is principal, what is compensation and what can still be contested. Our Turkish property work is described on the Turkey real estate page.
What this page does not settle
Enforcement procedure before the enforcement office, the building's own obligations under the earthquake and transformation laws, and the position of a buyer at a forced sale of a unit are separate subjects. The interaction between condominium consent and the tourism letting permit has its own page, and the title status of a building that never completed the condominium is on the title deed types page.
