Family cases involving a foreign national are rarely governed by one country’s law alone. Which law applies to your divorce, how your property is divided, where your children may live, and whether a judgment from another country counts for anything in Turkey are four separate questions. They are answered by the Law on Private International Law and Procedure No. 5718. Getting the sequence wrong, by filing in the wrong country or assuming a foreign order is automatically effective here, costs more than the case itself.
Divorce Where One Spouse Is Foreign
Turkish courts apply a hierarchy: the spouses’ common national law, failing that the law of their common habitual residence, failing that Turkish law. The outcome can therefore turn on facts that have nothing to do with where the case was filed. Grounds, financial claims and the division of assets may each be decided under a law you did not expect.
A Foreign Divorce Is Not Automatically Valid Here
If you divorced abroad, that judgment has no effect on your Turkish civil records until it is recognised through a recognition and enforcement action. Until then you remain married in Turkish records, with consequences for remarriage, inheritance and property. This is the most common problem we see in Turkish-British families, and it usually surfaces years later at the worst possible moment.
Matrimonial Property
Under the Turkish Civil Code No. 4721 the default regime is participation in acquired property. What was owned before the marriage, and what was inherited or received as a gift during it, is generally treated differently from what was acquired during the marriage. Where the asset is Turkish real estate, the title deed record and the way the purchase was funded become the central evidence. If property forms part of your case, see title deed and property matters.
Children
Custody, contact and relocation are decided on the child’s interests. For international families the practical risk is narrower: a child taken to, or kept in, Turkey without the other parent’s consent. Turkey is a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and applications under it run to strict timetables. Delay is the main reason these applications fail.
Protection orders under Law No. 6284 are available urgently where there is violence or the threat of it, and they are available to foreign nationals on the same basis.
Inheritance and Turkish Property
Turkish real estate in an estate is governed by Turkish law, whatever the deceased’s nationality and wherever the will was made. Foreign heirs regularly discover that a will drawn up abroad does not achieve what was intended for a Turkish property, and that no transfer can proceed until succession is established here. For the tax that follows, see inheritance and gift tax for foreigners.
Marrying in Turkey
Marrying here as a foreign national requires documents from your own authorities, properly legalised and translated. The formalities are not difficult. A defect in them is discovered at the registry office on the day of the ceremony.
What We Do
We act in divorce and financial proceedings, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, custody and Hague Convention applications, protection orders, matrimonial property claims involving Turkish real estate, and inheritance disputes and succession certificates for heirs living abroad.
Speak to Us Before You File
Which country you start in often decides the result. That choice is worth an hour of advice before it is made, not after.
Contact our office or call +90 530 949 29 91.