A Way Round

An icy tentacle of fear grips the stomach. A restless perspiration fevers the brow and sleep’s calming touch remains resolutely out of reach. That time has come around. Our residency is expiring.

I have written before that to enjoy the benefits of Turkey in retirement one should exercise the greatest discretion in stepping out of the expat bubble. Unfortunately sometimes, it is forced up on one. Such moments usually involve wrestling with the Turkish state (devlet). It is rarely a pain free experience. The Devlet takes the hindmost if you like.

Renewing ones residency is just such a moment.

We have been granted one year residency, five year residency (bliss!) and currently two year residency. The rules and requirements are always changing. Rumour has it that you can get a long term residency but the process is so fearful that only the brave or foolish attempt it.

Once upon a time when we lived in Kalkan, we owned a legally titled property with a deed (tapu), declaring us to be the rightful owners of a plot and the residential property and swimming pool sited upon it. In those halcyon days renewing our residency was relatively straightforward.

Then we moved to Islamlar. For a foreigner (yabancı) buying a property in Islamlar is to step in to Wonderland. Here, as the Mad Hatter put it “Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what it is wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”.

Building in Islamlar has been forbidden since 1979 when it was declared a landslip area. Foreigners are not even allowed to own land in Islamlar because it is a “country area”. So no chance then?

Ah but you are in Turkey. There is a Way Round. In Turkey there is a Way Round everything. Except roundabouts which are very difficult to find a way round. The priority is so confusing that the dominant principle is Who Dares Wins. And since, in a confrontation with a grizzled Tofaş, your newish, nancy boy Dacia Duster will fold like a TetraPak you lose. Everytime.

So here is how the process of buying your dream property in the beautiful mountain village of Islamlar and then applying for an residency goes.

First find your house, with its gorgeous views over pine clad slopes tumbling down to the azure mediterranean. Done that? Right then you have passed Go. 

Now your title deed will just show a field. Do not worry! Everybody’s title deed is like that in Islamlar because building is forbidden. So the house you are looking at does not exist in law.

As you are a foreigner in addition, you are not allowed to buy the field on which the House That Does Not Exist exists.

But there is a Way Round. Establish a Turkish company. The company will own the field. However, only Turks can start Turkish companies.

But there is a Way Round that too Your accountant will send an office junior who will briefly be CEO of your company before signing a deed to hand it over to you. Easy.

In the process you will make some new friends; your local Notary (noter) and his translator. These chaps will need feeding of course. But you will emerge from their office clutching papers bristling with colourful stamps and your wallet a little lighter.

So now you are the Director of your own Turkish company. It is a shell company. In other words it Does not Do Anything but it does own the field on which exists your House that Does Not Exist. You have also made another friend, your accountant; he will pay all the taxes and submit the necessary returns to government every year. He too will need feeding. Of course

But my house still does not exist (sad emoji)!

Bear with me. There is a Way Round. Every now and then a hungry Government will declare an amnesty on illegal building (Imar Barışı). You can pay a few thousand and get a certificate of registration (Yapı Kayit Belgesi).

Congratulations abı! Your house now exists.

Unfortunately this does not give you an address. For purposes of residency, you must have an abode in Turkey. I know the company of which you are a director owns a field on which stands a house that now exists but that is not the same thing. But there is..

..A Way Round?

You learn fast! Of course there is. We are in Turkey! All you need to do is make an agreement wherein the company, of which you are the Director, agrees to rent the field on which stands the House that Now Exists, to you as a tenant. You can make the rent up (not too much because in Turkey the tenant pays tax on the rent). Oh and you need to get your Rental Agreement notarised..

There we are! So now what wouldn’t be, would and what isn’t, is. Welcome to Wonderland.

So armed with what we hope is a full set of documents the Special and I will set off to Antalya on Friday 30th October for our appointment at 1.30 with an immigration official. If all goes well (there’s the rub!) we will emerge with a further two years.

In the meantime I am cloistered with the teasingly avuncular Jeremy Strong, author of the award winning Armadillo and Hare books and Medicine Head Solihin Thom putative author of The Complete Secrets of the Universe and Other Tales.

We are on a Writers’ Retreat in a log cabin in the mountains above Dalyan, located in the most perfect spot on God’s Earth. I shall be working on A Way Around: The Tangled Tale of an Englishman in Turkey

It makes it all worth it.

Here is to immigrants everywhere

Şerefe.