Since February 2023 there is no purchase meeting in my office that does not reach the earthquake question within the first ten minutes, and the question usually arrives in the wrong shape. Buyers ask whether the building is "insured" and whether it is "safe", as if one answer settled the other. It does not. Turkey has two separate systems, written in two separate laws, and they answer two different questions. The compulsory earthquake insurance, known by its Turkish initials as DASK, answers what you are paid if the building is damaged. Law 6306 on the Transformation of Areas under Disaster Risk answers who decides whether the building stands at all, and it allows that decision to be taken by your neighbours, on notice that a foreign owner abroad will usually never see. This page sets out both, from the statutes and the implementing regulation as rewritten in 2024 and amended in February 2026, and it ends with the checks I make before a client signs.
Sources, checked 9 September 2026. Disaster Insurance Law No. 6305, Articles 10, 11 and 12; Law No. 6306 on the Transformation of Areas under Disaster Risk, Articles 2, 3, 5, 6, 6/A, 7 and 9 and Additional Article 1, as amended by Law 7471 of 7 November 2023; Implementing Regulation of Law 6306 (Official Gazette 28498, 15 December 2012, rewritten by Official Gazette 32552 of 21 May 2024 and amended by Official Gazette 33158 of 4 February 2026), Articles 7, 8, 15, 15/A and 16; Condominium Law No. 634, Article 19; Turkish Building Earthquake Code (Official Gazette 30364 repeated issue, 18 March 2018).
Two laws, two questions
| Compulsory earthquake insurance (Law 6305) | Transformation law (Law 6306) | |
|---|---|---|
| The question it answers | What is paid when an earthquake damages the building | Whether a building is declared risky, emptied, demolished and rebuilt, and by whose decision |
| Who acts | The owner or usufructuary, every year | Any owner who commissions a report; the Urban Transformation Presidency; the municipality; a simple majority of co-owners by share |
| What it does to your title | Nothing, except that no transfer is registered without a valid policy | A "risky building" entry in the declarations column, followed by demolition, re-registration of the land in shares, and the possible sale of your share |
| Your deadlines | Renew annually; present the policy at the land registry | 15 days to object to the report, 30 days to sue, up to 90 days to vacate, 15 days to accept or refuse the majority's offer |
DASK: what the compulsory policy is and is not
Article 10 of Law 6305 makes earthquake insurance compulsory for independent units under the Condominium Law, for residential buildings on privately owned registered land, and for offices and shops inside such buildings. It is taken out by the owner or the usufructuary and renewed every year. The exclusions are narrow: public housing and public service buildings, buildings in village settlements built by registered villagers, and buildings used entirely for non-residential purposes even if they sit under a condominium title.
Article 11 is the provision that makes the policy impossible to forget at purchase. A land registry office may not register a transfer, or any other registration concerning a building within the scope, unless a policy exists and is valid on the day of the transaction. Water and electricity connections are checked against the policy too. This is why every deed transfer in Turkey includes a stop for the DASK certificate; it is not a formality invented by the agent.
What the policy pays is material damage to the building caused by the earthquake, up to a sum insured capped by the tariff issued under Article 13. Two limits matter to a foreign buyer of a valuable home. The cap is a figure set for the whole market and revised periodically, so a large or expensive property will usually be under-insured on the compulsory policy alone; voluntary cover on top of it is an ordinary commercial decision, not a legal one. And the policy insures the structure, not your furniture, your art or your loss of rent.
Two provisions decide whether you are paid at all. Article 10(4) allows the insurance pool to refuse cover for buildings built contrary to the legislation and the project, and to refuse buildings whose load-bearing system has been altered or weakened; it sends the list of such buildings to the municipality. Article 12 makes the owner responsible for preventing alterations that weaken the structure, and removes the right to indemnity where the damage is found to result from such an alteration. The ground-floor shop that knocked out a column to widen its frontage is therefore not only a structural question; it is an insurance question for every owner above it.
One thing DASK does not do is certify safety. A valid policy on a building tells you the owner paid a premium. It tells you nothing about whether a report under Law 6306 has been filed, or could be.
The report that starts the clock
Under Article 3 of Law 6306, a building is declared risky on the basis of a technical report by an institution licensed by the Urban Transformation Presidency. The report is commissioned in the first place by the owners at their own expense; Article 7 of the regulation routes the request through the Presidency's electronic system and does not make it conditional on the consent of the other co-owners. In practice one owner, or the developer who has bought one flat, is enough to start the process, and the rest of the building learns of it from the notice. The Presidency or the municipality may also order a report, give the owners a period to commission one and commission it themselves if they do not, and, where entry is refused, obtain the governor's written permission to have the doors opened by the police.
Article 7(3) of the regulation adds a rule that matters when you are buying: only one risk report may be drawn up for a building, save where an objection or a court decision requires a fresh one, the report proves false, or a concrete event has changed the building's condition. A building that has been examined and found risky cannot be re-examined by a friendlier engineer, and a building found not to be risky stays that way unless something happens to it.
What follows the report is the part foreign owners lose. Article 3(2) requires the Presidency or the municipality to notify the land registry within ten working days, so that "risky building" appears in the declarations column of the title. Service on the owners is then made by posting the report notice on the building, by a message through e-Devlet, and by a fifteen-day notice at the neighbourhood headman's office. The law says the report is deemed served on every owner and right-holder on the last day of that notice. Nobody posts a letter to Berlin or Tel Aviv.
From that deemed date two clocks run. Article 3(1) gives the owners fifteen days to object to a technical board of four university academics and three officials; Article 7(5) of the regulation adds that an objection filed late, or by someone who is not an owner or an heir, is not processed. Article 6(9) of the law gives thirty days from service to bring an action in the administrative courts against any act under the law, including the report. A foreign owner who does not hold e-Devlet credentials, has not registered an electronic notification address with the land registry, and has no one in Turkey watching the headman's noticeboard will discover the report when the demolition notice arrives, if then.
Ninety days
Once the report is final, Article 5(3) allows the municipality to give the owners no more than ninety days to vacate and demolish. Article 8 of the regulation fills in what happens inside that period: a demolition permit is issued within six working days on the application of any one owner, without the consent of the others, once the building is shown to be empty and disconnected; if the owners do not demolish, the utilities are cut on the municipality's request; and after the period the governor's office empties the building with police support and demolishes it, with the cost recovered from the owners in proportion to their shares under the public receivables law. Article 6/A goes further for buildings in danger of collapse or already damaged by landslide, fire or flood: the notice period there is two days and the objection period two days.
Demolition is not the only outcome. Article 8(7) of the regulation allows the owners, within the demolition period, to choose strengthening instead, provided they have it confirmed as technically possible, take the decision under Article 19(2) of the Condominium Law, prepare a strengthening project and obtain a permit. Article 19(2) requires the written consent of four fifths of all unit owners for works on common parts, unless a court has found the strengthening necessary, in which case no consent is needed. Article 6(8) of Law 6306 allows a strengthening credit from the transformation account for buildings outside risky areas that can technically be strengthened. Strengthening keeps the building and the title you bought; it needs four in five neighbours or a court, and it must be organised within the ninety days, not after.
The simple majority, and the auction of the dissenter's share
This is the provision every foreign owner should read twice. Since Law 7471 of November 2023, Article 6(1) of Law 6306 allows the co-owners, "by the simple majority of the shareholders in proportion to their shares", to decide on the demolition and rebuilding of a risky building, on the consolidation of parcels, on rebuilding by a developer against flats or against revenue, and on the sale of shares. Before 2023 the threshold was two thirds; it is now half plus one, counted by land share, and Article 6(16) adds that a partition action in the civil courts does not stop the majority from deciding and acting.
The owners who do not join the decision are then made an offer. Under Article 6(1) and Article 15(2) of the regulation, the majority's decision and the terms of the agreement are served on the dissenters through their electronic notification address if they have registered one with the land registry, otherwise by a notary or by a fifteen-day notice at the headman's office; an electronic notice is deemed served five days after it reaches the address, a headman's notice on its last day. The dissenter then has fifteen days to examine the offer and accept it. If they do not, their land share is valued by a licensed valuer on the Presidency's instruction and sold by auction to the agreeing co-owners at not less than that value; if no co-owner buys, the sale is repeated and may be made to a third party who accepts the agreement. The proceeds go to the former owner, and mortgages and attachments on the share continue on the price. Since the February 2026 amendment, Article 15 of the regulation also requires a formal owners' meeting called on standard forms, minutes signed by those present, and proof that the dissenters were notified and the share sale applied for before a building permit is issued.
The translation into plain terms is this. If your building is declared risky and you are abroad, silent or simply outvoted, the other owners can adopt a rebuilding contract you did not negotiate, and if you do not accept it within fifteen days of a notice you may never have seen, your share can be sold at an appraised value to your neighbours. The appraisal is a licensed valuation, not a negotiation, and the law bars a court from unwinding the sale for undervaluation once the buyer has paid the difference. Article 6(2) closes the other exit: if no majority is reached within thirty days after the land owners are notified following demolition, the Presidency or the municipality may expropriate by the accelerated procedure.
I do not say this to frighten anyone away from older buildings. I say it because the remedy is administrative and cheap: register an electronic notification address with the land registry, keep e-Devlet access alive, and give a power of attorney to someone in Turkey whose job is to read the headman's noticeboard for you.
The contract with the developer
Most rebuilding in Istanbul is done against flats: the owners give the land, the developer builds and keeps an agreed share of the new units. Three provisions of Article 6 protect the owners in that arrangement, and each has a clock. Under Article 6(10), where the land has been transferred to the developer under a preliminary sale or a construction-for-shares contract, the developer's creditors cannot attach the land until the condominium is established in the owners' names; but if the construction servitude is not registered within six months of the start of work, that shield falls away. Under Article 6(13), the developer may sell the units falling to its share only with the municipality's permission and only up to ten points below the certified completion percentage, unless every owner consents. Under Article 6(14), if the developer has not started within a year of the decision, or has stopped work for six months, a simple majority of owners may decide to terminate; the Presidency then gives the developer thirty days, and if work does not resume the contracts are deemed terminated without anyone's consent and the annotation is deleted from the title. Rent aid the developer has already paid is not recoverable from the owners.
Rent aid, temporary housing and the tax breaks
Article 5(1) of the law allows owners, tenants and resident right-holders who vacate by agreement to be given temporary housing or rent aid, and, since 2023, construction aid. Article 16 of the regulation fixes the duration: eighteen months for a risky building outside a risky area, and up to forty-eight months inside a risky or reserve area, on an application made within one year of vacating or demolition. Tenants and right-holders who have lived in the building for at least a year may, under Article 6(3), be given housing certificates or credit from the transformation account. The monthly amount is set by the Presidency and changes; I do not quote it here because the figure will be wrong by the time you read it.
The tax side is written in Article 7(9). The first sale, transfer, registration and mortgage of the new units built under the law, when one party is the owner, the developer or a tenant of at least a year, are exempt from notary fees, land registry fees, municipal fees and charges, inheritance and gift tax, and stamp duty; interest on credits used for the purpose is exempt from banking and insurance transactions tax. Article 7(10) waives municipal fees on new floor area up to one and a half times the existing building, and Article 5(2) allows interest support on bank loans at rates set by the President. For an owner who accepts the majority's rebuilding deal, the fee exemption on the new deed is real money; for a buyer of a finished unit on the second sale, it is gone.
Risky areas and reserve areas: decisions taken over your head
Everything above concerns a single building. Article 2 of the law also defines two kinds of area. A risky area is declared by the President where the ground or the buildings threaten life and property; Additional Article 1 extends the ground to areas where public order has broken down or where at least sixty-five per cent of the buildings are unlawful or were legalised after the event. A risky-area decision can be challenged in court only from its publication in the Official Gazette, not later through the implementing acts. A reserve building area is designated by the Presidency for use in transformation, and Article 3(7) lets private owners ask for their own land to be designated on condition that they cede thirty per cent of the buildable area or its value. Inside both kinds of area, Article 6/A allows the Presidency to run the transformation itself without the owners' consent, register the land in the Treasury's name during construction and hand back units according to a rights table.
A buyer looking at a flat in a district where such decisions have been taken or are being discussed is buying into a process, not a building. The transformation decisions published for Istanbul's districts are administrative acts whose litigation window runs from publication in the Official Gazette, and that window is usually closed by the time a foreign buyer hears the district's name.
Before you buy: the checks I make
- The declarations column of the title record, for a "risky building" entry or, after demolition, the entry that the parcel remains within Law 6306.
- Whether any risk report has ever been filed on the building, which the provincial directorate can confirm, because the one-report rule means a past finding binds you.
- The date of the building permit against the code in force. Buildings permitted from 1 January 2019 are designed under the 2018 Turkish Building Earthquake Code; earlier buildings were designed under the 2007, 1998 or 1975 codes, which is not a verdict but is a starting point for an engineer.
- The occupancy certificate and the condominium status, without which the flat is a share in a construction servitude and the building may be one of those an insurer can refuse under Article 10(4); the mechanics are on the due diligence page, and the Istanbul specifics on the Istanbul property page.
- Structural alterations in the building, in particular on the ground floor, because Article 12 of Law 6305 removes the indemnity where they caused the damage.
- The management plan and the arithmetic of four fifths for strengthening and of a simple majority by share for rebuilding: who owns what, and how many flats one developer already holds.
- Whether the building was legalised under the 2018 building amnesty rather than permitted, in which case a registration certificate stands in for the permit; the consequences for construction on such parcels are on the land page.
- Whether the buyer's foreign nationality and the location clear the ownership rules at all, which is the subject of the general buying guide.
Owners comparing the two coasts will find that Montenegro's answer to the same question is a structural code applied to new construction rather than a demolition regime for old buildings; it is set out on the Montenegro structural rules page.
Whose side we are on, and how we are paid
In a transformation project everyone but the owner is paid by the project happening. The developer earns its share of the new units, the valuer is instructed by the Presidency, the agent who sold you the flat earned the commission when you bought it, and the neighbour who commissioned the report may have done so because a developer offered better terms than the market. None of that is improper. It simply means that the person telling you the building "will be rebuilt anyway" is rarely the person who loses if the terms are poor.
We take no commission from developers, agents, valuers or contractors, in any form, on any file. The fee you pay us is our only income from your matter, and it does not rise if you buy, if you sign the rebuilding agreement or if you refuse it. Because our position does not move with the project, telling you that the developer's offer is below what the auction would fetch, or that the fifteen days have already run, costs us nothing to say.
One boundary, stated plainly. We are lawyers, not licensed investment advisers and not structural engineers. We do not tell you whether a building will survive the next earthquake, and we do not value flats. What we protect is the legal position: your notice address, your objection and litigation deadlines, your vote, your share and the contract that decides what you get back.
Before you sign, or before the notice runs
Send us the title record and the address. We will read the declarations column, ask the provincial directorate whether a report exists, register your electronic notification address, and set up the power of attorney that lets us answer a report or an offer within the fifteen days the law allows. If you already hold a flat in a building where a report has been filed, send the notice and the date you saw it; the deadlines are counted from the headman's noticeboard, not from your inbox. Our Turkish property work is described on the Turkey real estate page.
What this page does not settle
The lists of risky-area and renewal-area decisions for individual Istanbul districts, and the overlap with the heritage and renewal laws in the historic peninsula, are separate subjects. The developer's bond under the regulation and the Presidency's licensing of project-management firms under Article 6(15) are described here only in outline. The compulsory insurance tariff, including the sum insured and premium factors, is a financial instrument revised by the Ministry and is not reproduced.
