Investor Note — September 2026: Montenegro and Turkey, What Changed in Law, Not in Brochures

As of 3 September 2026, covering the window from 18 August to today — 18 August being the closing date of the August note. The premise is unchanged: agencies publish listings; a law firm publishes deltas.

The three rules, unchanged. A change is reported only when it exists as a dated instrument; each is labelled in force, adopted but gated or in process; and it earns space only if a holder or buyer should do something differently because of it. This window is dense: a fortnight in late August produced a tax treaty change, a constitutional change and a planning decision, all with gazette numbers on them.

Montenegro: three changes with dates on them

1. The BEPS convention entered into force for Montenegro on 1 September 2026

Montenegro signed the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting — the MLI — on 12 November 2025, deposited its instrument of ratification on 6 May 2026, and the OECD confirms entry into force on 1 September 2026. Montenegro listed 40 covered tax agreements, among them Germany, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Switzerland, the UAE and Türkiye.

So what. One line in the deposited position matters to anyone holding Montenegrin property through a company. Montenegro chose to apply Article 9(4): gains on shares or comparable interests may be taxed where the immovable property sits, if at any time in the 365 days before the alienation those interests derived more than 50% of their value, directly or indirectly, from immovable property there. The share deal — buying the d.o.o. that owns the villa rather than the villa — has mostly been analysed for transfer-tax and diligence reasons, the ground our asset deal versus share deal note covers. Article 9(4) adds a treaty-level look-back on the exit side, and 365 days is too long to cure by stripping value before a sale.

Two limits. Timing: the effect dates run from the later of the two states' entry-into-force dates, so where the partner is already a Party the modifications take effect for taxes withheld at source from 1 January 2027, and for other taxes for taxable periods beginning on or after 1 March 2027. Montenegro's deposited position notifies no shorter period, and nothing bites in 2026. Reciprocity: the MLI modifies a treaty only where it is in force for both states, with matching notifications — which is where the Türkiye position below becomes interesting.

What did not change. Under Article 5(8) Montenegro reserved the entirety of Article 5 — the methods for eliminating double taxation — out of every covered agreement, so the exemption and credit mechanics in each treaty stay as written. Our treaty network overview remains the map; the MLI writes in its margins, not over it.

2. Amendments XVII to XXI to the Constitution were proclaimed on 26 August 2026

Parliament adopted them on 24 August 2026 by 68 votes with none against, and the decisions proclaiming both the amendments and the accompanying constitutional implementation law appeared in Official Gazette 126/2026 of 26 August 2026 — the first amendments to the Constitution in thirteen years. Their subject is the composition and election of the Judicial Council and Prosecutorial Council, the qualified-majority election of certain judicial and prosecutorial office-holders, and the constitutional position of the Central Bank.

So what. This is not a property statute. It is still the window's most consequential item for a cross-border holder, for one structural reason: disputes over rights in Montenegrin immovable property fall to the Montenegrin courts exclusively — a foreign forum clause does not move such a dispute, and a foreign judgment on it is not recognised. The forum you cannot contract out of has just had its governing councils rewritten, which is a reason to read court reform as operational information rather than diplomacy.

3. The coast goes back to the drawing board

The same gazette carries the Government's decision to draw up a Spatial Plan of Special-Purpose Area for the Coastal Area of Montenegro, covering Budva, Herceg Novi, Tivat, Bar, Kotor and Ulcinj together with the territorial sea and internal waters, excluding the parts inside Skadar Lake and Lovćen National Parks. The horizon is 2040; drafting runs to roughly twenty months.

So what. In process — a decision to draft a plan is not a plan. Today's detailed urban plans still govern what may be built, and the maritime domain boundary still governs what a waterfront listing contains, as our maritime domain guide sets out. The consequence is narrower than "the coast is reopening": for two years the coastal municipalities plan under documents a superior plan is expected to supersede, so a purchase whose value depends on future permitted use — a plot, an unbuilt phase, an assembly play — is bought into a planning layer openly scheduled to change. Built, permitted and registered stock is unaffected.

Status line — visa requirement from 1 November 2026, and a scope correction. The decree of 23 July 2026 applies to five nationalities, not one: alongside Turkish citizens it covers Belarus, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, closing the remaining divergences between Montenegro's visa regime and the EU's under accession chapter 24. The August note reported the Turkish limb only; the wider scope changes who in a buyer's family or counterparty chain needs lead-time. On implementation — August's own watch item — applications are routed through VFS Global centres, already operating in Türkiye, the UAE and Russia, rather than through an embassy. No transitional rule has been published for stays running from October into November. Ownership is untouched; only presence is.

Status line — the €150,000 residence permit threshold: in force, unchanged. Since 17 January 2026, under Official Gazette 3/2026, property-based temporary residence for non-EU nationals requires a property whose tax-assessed value reaches €150,000, with EU, EEA and Swiss citizens exempt. Nothing moved; the mechanics are in our residence-through-property guide.

The contrarian reading for Montenegro. Last month's reading was that accession arrives as administration before it arrives as rights. This window proves it. Montenegro amended its Constitution for the first time in thirteen years, and not one line changes what a foreigner may buy, how title passes, or what the cadastre records — while the two changes that will actually reach an investor's file, a treaty look-back on share disposals and a visa requirement, arrived quietly by deposited instrument and by decree. Read the gazette, not the summit photographs. Our framework on EU accession and Montenegrin real estate is unchanged.

Turkey: a quiet window, and one asymmetry inside it

The Official Gazette produced no change to the citizenship-by-investment framework: the USD 400,000 property threshold, the valuation and three-year non-disposal annotation requirements, and the 2022–2024 operative amendments all stand. Two consecutive quiet windows are themselves the answer to a rumour that renews every quarter; the operative documents remain those our seller-eligibility analysis maps.

The contrarian reading for Turkey. Montenegro listed the Montenegro–Türkiye tax treaty as covered agreement number 37, which reads like "the treaty is about to change." It is not. Türkiye signed the MLI on 7 June 2017 and, on the OECD's own signatories-and-parties list, has still not deposited an instrument of ratification — no deposit date, no entry-into-force date against its name. Its ratification bill has been before Parliament, in one form or another, since 2020. Because the convention modifies a covered agreement only once it is in force for both states, the treaty is listed but unmodified. For this corridor that is the important sentence in the whole MLI story: an investor moving between these two jurisdictions reads the Türkiye–Montenegro treaty exactly as written, while one moving between Montenegro and Germany, the Netherlands or the UK does not. For the 2022–2023 cohort now exiting Turkish holdings, the binding constraint remains the tax calendar, as the exit guide sets out.

One widely-reported development that does not matter

"Montenegro joins the global crackdown on tax avoidance." Some owners will read the MLI headline as a new tax on foreign property holders. It is not, on three counts: the convention modifies treaties rather than creating a domestic charge; Article 5 is reserved in full, so double-tax relief methods are untouched; and nothing has effect before 2027. An individual who owns a Montenegrin apartment in their own name and sells it is exactly where they were last month.

One practice observation to file, not price. The bill returning maritime-domain management to the coastal municipalities — August's watch item — was supported by Parliament's Legislative Committee in July and has not been adopted; nothing to that effect appears in the gazette through 26 August 2026. It moved one procedural step and remains a bill. If it passes, the counterparty on use contracts changes; state ownership of the maritime domain does not.

The window at a glance

What we are watching for the October note

Whether Türkiye deposits its MLI instrument, which would put the Montenegro–Türkiye treaty into play; whether a transitional rule appears for stays running across 1 November; the first intergovernmental conference after the amendments, and whether chapters 23 and 24 move; and whether the maritime-domain bill reaches plenary. If nothing moves, the October note will say so.

Whose side we are on, and how we are paid

Every other professional around a Montenegrin transaction is paid out of the transaction. The agent's commission depends on the sale completing; the developer's sales team belongs to the developer; the notary owes duties to the act, not to you. That is not a scandal — it is how those roles are funded, and it decides what each of them is able to tell you.

We take no commission from sellers, developers, agents or brokers. None, in any form, on any file. The fee you pay us is our only income from your matter, and it does not increase if you sign. Because our position does not move when the deal moves, "do not buy this one" costs us nothing to say.

What that looks like in the file rather than in a slogan: we pull the register extracts ourselves rather than accept the seller's or agent's copies; we read the contract against your position, not against completion; we put it in writing when the answer is that the matter should not proceed; and where a defect can be cured, we tell you what it costs in time before you commit money.

One boundary we state plainly. We are lawyers, not licensed investment advisers. We do not give personal investment advice on financial instruments and we do not tell you whether an asset will make money. What we protect is your legal position — the title, the contract, the registration, the status, and the deadlines that decide all four.

This note is monthly and built to be forwarded. If a change reported here touches a holding of yours, send us the document before you sign it — that review is the ordinary work of our wealth management practice, and the logic behind it is set out in two jurisdictions, one counsel.