Land for sale in Turkey: building plots, hillside and the plot by the sea

Land for sale in Turkey: what you may buy as a foreigner

Buyers from the UK and Europe may buy land in Turkey. Military zones and sensitive areas are excluded, and there is a cap: at most 30 hectares nationwide per person, and in one municipality foreigners together may own at most 10 per cent of the area. For a building plot of 500 or 1,000 square metres that does not matter. For an olive grove or a piece of farmland it matters more, and we check that in advance.

Ownership arises only with the entry in the Tapu (title deed), the land registry, not with a contract or deposit. With complete documents the transfer is done in a day.

İmar: the zoning status

The most important word when buying land is İmar. It stands for the municipality’s development plan and says whether and how you may build: how many storeys, what percentage of the area, what use. A plot with İmar for residential building is building land. A plot without İmar is farmland, pasture or forest, and you get no building permit on it, whatever the seller says.

In between there are intermediate stages, for example areas that are planned in the land-use plan but not yet serviced, or hillside plots where only part may be built on. For every plot we obtain the current status from the municipality before you sign anything. What comes out of that is explained to you in plain English.

Services and access

Building land without road, water and electricity is first of all a field. We check whether there is public access or only a farm track across someone else’s land, whether water and electricity lines reach the plot or you have to have them laid at your own cost, and whether the wastewater goes to a sewer or you need a cesspit. These are the points that later determine the cost of building.

Land by the sea

“Land for sale in Turkey by the sea” is one of the most common enquiries we get, and one of the hardest. The coastal strip in Turkey is in large parts a protected zone in which building is not allowed. What does exist are hillside plots with a sea view in the second or third row, for example above Alanya, near Kaş, in Fethiye or on the Bodrum peninsula. There you build with a view of the water, ten minutes from the beach. If someone offers us a plot in the front row, the first thing we check is whether it lies in the protected strip. We clarify that before you fall in love. More on Property by the sea in Turkey.

Building yourself

Many people who buy a plot want to plan their house themselves. That is possible, and it is fun: you decide where the kitchen goes, how big the terrace is and whether the pool faces west. You need an architect who submits the building application to the municipality, a building firm and someone on the ground who checks in between. Alpa Abi and the people in our network know architects and building firms on the coast who work properly and in the end get Iskan (occupancy permit). Without it no electricity runs in your name.

The scene: a Sunday in May, the shell is up, you sit with the site manager on two stones drinking tea, the sea below. That is how it feels.

Costs of buying land

The additional costs are the same as for a house and an apartment: 4 per cent Tapu fee on the declared purchase price, valuation report from about 5,000 lira, translator, power of attorney, together roughly 4 to 5 per cent. With land, servicing comes on top if it is missing, and later the building. We give you concrete prices for plots once we know the area and the İmar. More on the items in the guide to additional costs, on the legal side in the legal guide.