country guide Turkey

Turkey is in a unique position on the cusp of Europe, both geographically and politically. Physically, most of the country is in Asia, but Turkey aspires to become a fully-fledged part of Europe and launched accession negotiations in 2005 to join the European Union that are expected to take 10 years.

Whether or not Turkey succeeds in joining the EU, it is likely to remain an extremely popular country in which to own property. Its main draw is 8,000km of coastline, mostly on the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, with scenery to match most of what Greece can offer.

The Turkish people are positively renowned for their hospitality; their culture and cuisine can hold their own with anywhere in Europe, and above all, there is a wide availability of high quality property at extremely inexpensive prices.

Travel

Air

There are daily flights throughout the year to Ankara and Istanbul from Heathrow but the most popular airport for holiday flights is Dalaman, on the south-west corner, which has flights to some 18 cities in the UK. Other airports that are well served - in summer at least - are Izmir, Bodrum and Antalya. There are no direct flights to either the Black Sea coast, or the East of Turkey.

Turkish Airlines flies from Heathrow or Manchester to Istanbul Ataturk, which is the main hub for internal flights. And a variety of charter companies including Cosmos and Thomas Cook fly out to the tourist airports during the summer months. Among budget airlines, easyJet flies to Istanbul only, out of Luton; while RyanAir doesn't go to Turkey at all at the moment.

Flight time is around four hours from the UK to Turkey, though this depends on the exact route, and prices for summer returns start at around £250.

Sea

There are a number of short-hop ferry crossings from Greek islands to Turkey; the main Greek islands served are Kos, Chios, Rhodes and Samos; and the main Turkish ports are Bodrum, Cesme, Kusadasi and Marmaris. More usefully - and a route that is certainly used by some property owners wishing to take their own car to Turkey - you can take a ferry from Ancona or Brindisi on the Adriatic coast of Italy, to Cesme, with the Reca Marmara Lines. The journey takes 45 hours on the Ancona to Cesme route.

There are also a variety of domestic ferry and hydrofoil services that can be taken from Istanbul; destinations include the Black Sea ports, Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, and the Aegean Coast resorts such as Izmir and Bodrum. And there are boats from several southern ports to Kyrenia in northern Cyprus.

Train

Istanbul has two main stations: Sirkeci is on the western side and was once the terminus of the London-Constantinople Orient Express; Haydarpasa is on the other side of the Bosphorus and provides access to most of the country with trains travelling to the capital Ankara and as far as Kars and Van in the east. Trains are operated by Turkish State Railways, which has English translation on its website.

Trains in Turkey can be extremely comfortable if you travel in the luxury Pullman coaches, but incredibly slow. The railway company is addressing this by introducing high speed trains on two routes: Istanbul -Ankara, and Ankara-Konya.

Roads

In theory, driving is a good way to get from A to B in a country as big as Turkey. But the one drawback is road safety, or the lack of it. Turkey has one of the worst accident records in the world. The problem is reputedly exacerbated around Ramadan, when Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink between dawn and dusk, which may affect their concentration.

Buses

The most popular form of transport in Turkey by a long way, buses run everywhere, are often faster than trains on the same route, and are generally good value. There are dozens of companies in competition, and some, such as Varan, even have English-language online booking. Round-trips from Istanbul to Ankara - 280 miles - start at around TL 100 (£33).

Climate

In very broad terms, Turkey's south coast has very hot summers and mild winters; the Black Sea coast is as much as 10 degrees cooler than the south; and the central Anatolian plain ranges from very hot summers to very cold winters, getting more extreme the further east you travel. The area around Istanbul and Marmara is the most temperate and can often be cloudy even in summer.

As you travel east along the Black Sea coast it gets more and more humid, as the clouds rolling across the Black Sea are stopped by the mountains inland. As a result, the Black Sea coast is a region of lush green vegetation where cherries, hazelnuts and tobacco all grow. On the Anatolian plain, by contrast, there is very little rain - just 15 inches a year - and so you have a much more arid terrain, where the main agriculture is sheep grazing. As you head to the east, the land becomes poorer and the winters become bitterly cold with widespread snow and temperatures reaching as low as -40C.

For most property owners, the areas of greatest interest are the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. Around Izmir on the west coast, you can expect temperatures around 30C in summer - though it can go considerably higher - and a few degrees above that on the south coast, reaching a peak close to the Syrian border. The temperature all around the southern coast seldom drops below freezing, and as a result, most of Turkey's holiday areas have a significantly longer season than comparable resorts in Bulgaria.

Language

The Turkish language originates in central Asia, and as such bears little resemblance to Latin or Greek languages. It does have some links with Hungarian and - even stranger - Finnish, and to listen to, it can sound quite staccato with one-dimensional vowels always followed by consonants. The good news is that the alphabet is pretty similar to ours, which makes reading signs relatively straightforward.

Mustapha Kemal Attatürk - founder of the modern secular Turkey - introduced a Latin alphabet in favour of the Arabic-based Ottoman one when he came to power. There are 21 consonants and eight vowels in all: no Q, W, or X but variations of certain letters with umlauts, cedillas and the like. The not so good news is that the grammar is said to be a nightmare to learn. Vowel harmony, agglutination and consonant mutation are just some of the technical tricks that linguists have to deal with.

Just as well you can get by with English most of the time. Twenty five years ago German was far more widely spoken than English, thanks to the large numbers of Turkish 'guestworkers' in Germany. Nowadays that has changed and English is much more common, especially in the coastal tourist areas. So you could probably get by most of the time. The greatest concentration of Brits is in Bodrum, Fethiye and Kalkan - all areas where there is an expat network to help you out. Fethiye even has its own English language newspaper, the Fethiye Times.

Glossary:

Property - Emlak

The notary - Noter

Solicitor - Avukat

Sales contract - satış sözleşmesi

Planning permission - Planlanma izni

Title deeds - Tapu

Deposit - Depozit

Loan - Ipotek kredisi

The buyer - alici

The seller - satici

An estate agent - emlak acentasi

An apartment - apartman

A block of flats - daireler bloǧu, Apartman daireler

A traditional stone house - gelenksel tas ev

A farmhouse - çiftlik evi

A large house, castle - kale, büyük ev

A family house - aile evi

To be restored - tadilat edilecek

Can be converted - dönüştürülebilir

Legal

Visas

The first thing to bear in mind is that, as Turkey is not yet in the EU, British people do not enjoy the same rights as they would to visit or reside in other EU countries. Nationals of France, Germany and a number of other countries don't need visas at all to visit Turkey; for UK citizens, you must pay for a three month visa stamp at the border, which entitles you to multiple visits and costs approximately £10. If you want to stay longer than three months, or you intend to work in Turkey, then you must apply to the local police for a residence permit which may be granted for up to five years. You will be asked to show that you are able to support yourself in order to qualify. The cost varies according to the length of the permit and your nationality, and is approximately £1,000 for the full five years.

Property ownership and the buying process

In Turkey, you can buy property in certain designated areas, which are mainly tourist centres. The original law allowing non-Turkish citizens was passed in 2002 and was adapted in 2006. It is restricted to countries with which Turkey has a reciprocal agreement - this includes the UK - and specifies the maximum amount of land you are allowed to own, which is 30 hectares. You are specifically prohibited from buying anywhere that is designated a military zone, and rural properties can also require military permission, so the most straightforward purchases are in municipalities.

Once you have found the property you are looking for, you may be asked for a reservation deposit of around £2,000 to take the property off the market, especially if you are buying off-plan. The next step is to sign an initial agreement to buy, at which point you usually pay a further deposit of 10% to 20%.

You should appoint a local solicitor at this point; you are not strictly required to have a lawyer acting for you, but it is extremely advisable to do so. They will obtain the title deeds for the property and check that it has relevant planning permission. They also make a number of other searches and checks, for example to ascertain that there are no outstanding debts on the property. You would normally also open a bank account and register with the local tax office.

The second step is to go to the TAPU, or deeds office, with your passport, four photos and details of your mother's and father's names, to register your application to buy. You have to apply to the government, via TAPU, for a permit to buy, which usually takes three to four weeks and this also involves military clearance (if you have a criminal record your application may be turned down.) There is a general expectation that the military permission to buy property will eventually be phased out, as one of the conditions for Turkey to join the EU.

Once you have clearance, a second contract is drawn up, signed by both buyer and seller, and the property is transferred to you. You would usually go back to the TAPU for this, though it can be achieved via power of attorney. At this stage you pay the balance of the purchase price and also the purchase tax.

Fees and Taxes

Estimates for the individual costs associated with purchase vary quite widely, though the overall view seems to be that you should budget around 10% on top of the purchase price (2007). The purchase or property transfer tax is 3% of the purchase price, though strictly speaking buyer and seller should each pay half of this.

Other charges you have to pay include £70 to register the title deed in your name; £70-plus for power of attorney and contract translation; and an occupation tax for brand new properties which ranges from around £500 to £700. You should also budget £500-plus for lawyers' fees; and the estate agent will typically charge 3% to 5%. Additionally, you have to pay fees to have water and electricity registered in your name, which costs around £100 altogether. All in all, the process of buying in Turkey can be expected to take at least three months, and often six months. It can take even longer if documents get held up.

Communications

Telephones

Türk Telekom was separated from the Post Office in 1995, but still has a monopoly on fixed lines in Turkey. There has been heavy investment in the country's telephone infrastructure, and 83% of the 19m lines nationwide are digital. The company operates a number of different tariffs according to your needs. For example under KonuskanHATT - a "talk-a-lot" tariff for high users - you pay YTL 20.4 a month rental - around £6.70 - and YTL 0.07 (2.3p) a minute for peaktime local calls.

To get a line, you have to apply via your local Türk Telekom office, providing passport as proof of identity. Bills are sent monthly and can be paid at the post office. Türk Telekom has a website with English language pages at www.turktelekom.com.tr

Mobiles

The three main mobile phone providers in Turkey are Avea, Vodafone and Turkcell. To get a prepaid phone, you need to fill out a form and provide your passport; to get a subscription phone, you must also find a Turkish citizen who is willing to stand surety for you up to the sum of YTL 1,200 (£397). Of the three main operators, Turkcell has the biggest installed base and Vodafone entered the market by buying its main rival, Telsim, in 2005.

In theory, it is possible to use your UK phone with a Turkish SIM card, but to do so, you need to register it first (to counter widespread phone theft) and this tends to be a fraught and uncertain business. The alternative is to use your UK phone on roaming, which is inevitably more expensive.

Broadband

The main fast internet option is ADSL from TürkTelekom, which is also re-packaged by other companies. Reports of the service are variable, and it is not cheap: expect to pay YTL 140 (£46) a month for a 1mb per second service. Downtime is much more common than in the UK. There are also cable and satellite services available depending upon the location.

Television

The two main cable stations in Turkey are Turkstat and Digitürk. The latter has the greater number of channels - around 130 - including some pay per view movies, and both include many of the usual cable suspects such as BBC World, Eurosport and CNN. Receiving a full range of British television in Turkey is a challenge. You would have to take out a Sky subscription from a UK address, then install the Sky box in Turkey (which breaches Sky's conditions, and means they could switch you off).

Because of the distance from the Sky satellite footprint, however, you would probably need a dish at least 3m in diameter, possibly 5m, to receive a decent signal. It may make more sense to watch the Premiership football matches on Turkish TV at the weekend.

Financial

Banking

There is no shortage of banks that will be vying for your money in Turkey. More than a dozen banks have websites in English, and those that offer full online banking include GarantiBank, FinansBank, and Yapi Kredi Bankasi.

The most familiar name for British property owners is HSBC, which has around 200 branches around the country. Although your HSBC account in the UK doesn't work in Turkey, you can use it to expedite opening an account there. The easiest way to transfer money to your account in Turkey is via Swift.

Banks are usually open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm, but close from midday to 1.30 pm for lunch. A few banks stay open on Saturdays, especially in tourist areas. Incidentally, it is worth knowing that the Turkish lira (denoted TL) was replaced by 'New Turkish Lira' (YTL) in 2005 following chronic devaluation. Each new lira was worth 1m old lira. In 2009, the 'new' will be dropped.

Mortgages

Until quite recently, it was almost impossible to get a mortgage in Turkey, whether you were a citizen or not. This had much to do with the unstable financial history of the country and the soaraway inflation that has plagued the economy for decades. Turkish people traditionally bought their property either with cash or through expensive short-term loans from banks or developers. The only viable option for overseas buyers was to purchase with cash, which often meant releasing equity from a UK property.

Legislation to pave the way for mortgages in Turkey has been long-awaited and finally came into effect in February 2007. Mortgage products are coming on-stream slowly. HSBC is one of the first into the market; it is offering up to 75% loan-to-value for YTL mortgages, or up to 50% for those denominated in foreign currency such as euros. But with inflation still running at over 10% in Turkey (2007), you should be prepared for some mouth-watering interest rates.

Taxation

The good news is that if you hold on to your property for at least five years after purchase, there is effectively no capital gains tax to pay. If you sell before five years, then you are liable for income tax on the profit above YTL 6,400. Equally, you pay income tax on any rental income you receive on your property, though a double taxation treaty means that you don't have to pay this tax again in the UK.

Income tax rates in 2007 are as follows: 0-YTL7,500, 15%; YTL7,500-19,000, 20%; YTL19,000-43,000, 27%; and income above YTL43,000, 35%. Vat in Turkey is charged at 18% but inheritance tax has a top rate of just 10%.

There is an annual property tax to pay, which is 0.1% of the value of your property in most of Turkey, to be paid in two annual instalments; in a number of the bigger cities, it is 0.2%.

Calendar

The main public holidays in Turkey are as follows:

Jan 1 - New Year's Day

Apr 23 - National Independence and Children Day

May 19 - Atatürk Commemoration and Youth and Sports Day

Aug 30 - Victory Day (final out of invading forces in 1922)

Oct 11-14 - Seker Bayrami (Religious holiday)

Oct 29 - National Day (Anniversary of the declaration of the Turkish Republic)

Dec 19-23 - Kurbam Bayrami (Religious holiday)

One of the biggest festivals of the year is Hidrellez, or the Spring Feast, on May 5, when people clean their houses from top to bottom and hang their wishes on the Nahil tree.

Ramadan is also a very important time of year in Turkey. It is the holy month, which begins the day after the crescent for the 9 lunar month of the Islamic calendar is sighted, and begins at a different time each year. Muslims must fast from daybreak to dusk for 30 days; many restaurants will not serve food during these hours. In 2007, Ramadan begins on 13 September.

May 2007.

Alexander Garrett is a freelance property writer who contributes regularly to The Observer and British Airways' Business Life.

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