Turkish law protects reserved shares for qualifying descendants, parents and a surviving spouse, subject to statutory exceptions such as lawful disinheritance. Abatement claims have a one-year knowledge-based deadline and a ten-year outer period with different starting points for wills and other dispositions. Alleged collusive transfers require separate factual and legal assessment.
Turkish succession law does not allow a person to leave his or her estate entirely as he or she pleases. A defined group of close relatives, the descendants, the parents, and the surviving spouse, holds a reserved share, saklı pay, under Article 506 of the Turkish Civil Code, Law No. 4721, which is protected against dispositions that infringe it, subject only to the statutory exceptions, including a lawful disinheritance on the grounds set out in Article 510. When the reserved share is taken away anyway, usually through a will that leaves too much to one person or through a transfer made during the deceased's lifetime that was recorded as a sale but was in reality a gift, the remedy is a lawsuit, and each type of lawsuit has its own conditions, its own evidence, and its own deadline. The deadlines are where heirs most often lose: the action for abatement must be brought within one year of the heir learning of the infringement, the action to annul a will within one year of learning of the ground, and only the claim for a collusive lifetime transfer, muris muvazaası, escapes those short periods. This guide explains the reserved shares and the disposable portion, the three principal actions available to a disinherited heir and how they differ, the evidence each requires, the particular position of foreign heirs and of Turkish real estate, the preventive measures available to a testator, and what an heir who suspects an infringement should do first.
Quick Answer: Under Article 506 of the Turkish Civil Code the reserved share is one half of the statutory share for descendants, one quarter for each parent, the whole of the statutory share for a surviving spouse inheriting with descendants or parents, and three quarters in other cases; siblings have had no reserved share since 2007. Whatever remains after the reserved shares is the disposable portion, which the deceased may leave to anyone. Where a will or a lifetime gift infringes a reserved share, the heir brings an action for abatement, tenkis davası, under Articles 560 to 571, which cuts the disposition back to the extent needed to restore the share; the right is lost one year after the heir learns of the infringement and in any event ten years after the opening of the will for testamentary dispositions or the opening of the succession for other dispositions, under Article 571. Where the deceased transferred property during his or her lifetime by a recorded sale that was in reality a gift intended to defeat the heirs, the heir brings an action for cancellation of the title and re-registration on the ground of collusion, muris muvazaası, under the Court of Cassation's unifying decision of 1 April 1974, which is not subject to the one year abatement period. A will may be annulled under Articles 557 to 559 for lack of capacity, defect of consent, unlawful or immoral content, or defect of form, within one year of the claimant learning of the ground and the will, and in any event ten years, or twenty against a defendant in bad faith, from the opening of the will. Turkish courts have exclusive jurisdiction over immovable property in Türkiye under Article 43 of Law No. 5718, a foreign heir obtains the certificate of inheritance from the court rather than a notary, and every step may be taken under a power of attorney.
The Turkish Civil Code, like the Swiss Code from which it derives, balances two principles: the freedom of a person to dispose of his or her property on death, exercised through a will under Articles 502 to 544 or an inheritance contract under Articles 545 to 549, and the protection of the family through intestate succession under Articles 495 to 501 and through the reserved share under Articles 505 to 513. The reserved share is the point at which the second principle limits the first. A testator may dispose freely of the disposable portion, tasarruf edilebilir kısım, under Article 505, and may reduce the reserved share only by a disinheritance under Article 510 on the ground that the heir committed a serious offence against the deceased or a close relative or seriously breached family law duties towards the deceased, or under Article 513 by a protective disinheritance of an insolvent descendant in favour of that descendant's children. Outside those cases, a disposition that encroaches on a reserved share is not void; it is effective but reducible, at the instance of the heir whose share is infringed, by the actions described in this guide.
The reserved share is a fraction of the heir's statutory share under intestate succession, not a fraction of the whole estate, so the first step in any calculation is to establish the statutory shares under Articles 495 to 499 and the second is to apply the fractions in Article 506.
| Heir | Reserved Portion of the Statutory Share Under Article 506 |
|---|---|
| Descendants, children and grandchildren | One half |
| Mother and father, each | One quarter |
| Surviving spouse inheriting alongside descendants or alongside the parents' branch | The whole of the statutory share |
| Surviving spouse in other cases | Three quarters |
| Siblings | None since the amendment of Law No. 5650 in 2007 |
Where the deceased leaves a spouse and two children, the statutory shares under Article 499 are one quarter to the spouse and three eighths to each child. The spouse's reserved share is the whole of that quarter; each child's reserved share is half of three eighths, that is three sixteenths; the total reserved shares are one quarter plus six sixteenths, that is five eighths; and the disposable portion is three eighths. A will leaving the entire estate to one child infringes the spouse's reserved share by one quarter and the other child's by three sixteenths, and each may bring an abatement action for that amount. Where the deceased leaves only a spouse and parents, the spouse's statutory share is one half and reserved in full, each parent's statutory share is one quarter and reserved as to one sixteenth, and the disposable portion is three eighths.
Under Article 507 the disposable portion is calculated on the net estate at the date of death, after deduction of debts, funeral costs, and the maintenance of household members for one month, and under Article 508 certain lifetime gifts are added back to the estate for the purpose of the calculation, including gifts made in the five years before death other than customary presents, gifts that the deceased was evidently free to revoke, and gifts made with the evident intention of evading the reserved share rules. This add back is what allows an abatement action to reach lifetime dispositions as well as the will.
Where a will, an inheritance contract, or a lifetime gift within Article 565 has encroached on a reserved share, the remedy is the action for abatement, tenkis davası, under Articles 560 to 571 of the Civil Code. The action does not annul the disposition; it cuts it back to the extent needed to restore the reserved share, in the order the law prescribes: testamentary dispositions are reduced first, and only if they are insufficient are lifetime gifts reduced, the most recent first, under Article 570. Where the disposition is of a specific asset that cannot be divided without loss of value, Article 564 allows the beneficiary to choose between retaining the asset and paying the heir the value of the excess, or surrendering the asset and receiving the value of the disposable portion.
The action belongs to each heir with a reserved share individually, and an heir who does not bring it leaves the disposition effective as against his or her own share; the court does not reduce dispositions of its own motion. Under Article 562 the heir's creditors and the bankruptcy administration may bring the action where the heir does not, if they held an attachment or bankruptcy certificate against the heir at the date of death. The defendant is the beneficiary of the disposition, whether a co-heir or a third party, and where the asset has passed to a further acquirer the action lies against the beneficiary for the value unless the acquirer took in bad faith.
Under Article 571 the right to bring an abatement action is lost one year from the date on which the heir with a reserved share learned that his or her reserved share had been infringed, and in any event ten years from the opening of the will for testamentary dispositions and from the opening of the succession for other dispositions. The ten year period runs from the date of death in the case of lifetime gifts, whether or not the heir knew of them. The one year period is short, and it starts when the heir learns of the infringement, which is ordinarily the notification of the will's contents by the civil court of peace under Article 597, not when the estate is finally distributed or when the heir decides to take advice. The period is a preclusive period, hak düşürücü süre, which the court applies of its own motion and which is not interrupted or suspended. Where the heir is a defendant in a claim by the beneficiary, however, the plea of abatement may be raised by way of defence at any time under Article 571, paragraph 3.
One pattern that gives rise to a large proportion of Turkish inheritance litigation concerns a lifetime transfer rather than a will. The deceased transfers immovable property during his or her lifetime to one child, or to a spouse from a second marriage, or to a grandchild, and the transfer is recorded at the land registry as a sale, when in reality no price was paid or intended and the transaction was a gift made with the purpose of keeping that property out of the estate and away from the other heirs. Because a gift of immovable property requires the official form of a notarial or land registry donation, and because the parties chose the form of a sale precisely to disguise it, the transaction is a simulation, muvazaa, under Article 19 of the Code of Obligations, Law No. 6098.
Under the unifying decision of the General Assembly of the Court of Cassation of 1 April 1974, numbered 1974/1 E. 1974/2 K., which remains the governing authority, where the heirs establish that the recorded sale was simulated and concealed a gift intended to defeat them, the recorded sale is void as a simulated transaction, and the underlying gift is void for want of the required form, so that the property never left the deceased's estate. The remedy is an action for cancellation of the title and re-registration, tapu iptali ve tescil davası, under Article 1025 of the Civil Code, brought by the heir against the transferee, and the court orders the registry entry cancelled and the property registered in the names of the heirs according to their shares, or in the claimant's name as to his or her share where only one heir sues. The extent of relief depends on the claimant's entitlement, on the claim as framed, and on the facts proved; it is not an automatic return of the whole property in every case, and the transferee who is also an heir retains his or her own share. Not every gift or unpaid family transaction meets the conditions of the doctrine: a genuine gift made openly in the proper form, a transfer for which a price was in fact paid even if below market, or a transfer made for a purpose other than defeating the heirs, such as providing for a disabled child, may fall outside it, and our guide on when muris muvazaası claims are rejected sets out the circumstances in which the courts have declined relief.
The critical practical difference between this claim and abatement is that the claim for a collusive transfer is not subject to the one year abatement period. Because the simulated transaction is void, the claim to have the registry corrected is not subject to any limitation period at all, and may be brought by an heir years after the death. This does not mean that missing an abatement deadline converts an abatement claim into a collusion claim: the two have different legal bases and different evidence, a transfer may infringe a reserved share without being simulated, and the claimant who has lost the abatement period must prove simulation in its own right. In practice the two claims are frequently pleaded together in the alternative, the collusion claim for cancellation of title and, failing proof of simulation, the abatement claim for reduction of the gift, where the abatement period has not expired.
Simulation is proved by circumstantial evidence, and the Court of Cassation has identified the indicators the courts examine: a recorded price far below the market value at the date of transfer; the absence of any evidence that a price was paid, such as a bank transfer or a receipt, or evidence that a nominal payment was returned; a transferee without the means to pay the recorded price; the deceased's continued possession, use, or receipt of the income of the property after the transfer; the deceased's age, health, and circumstances at the date of transfer, in particular a transfer made shortly before death or during a terminal illness; the deceased's relationship with the transferee and with the excluded heirs, including evidence of a settled intention to favour one and exclude the others; and whether the deceased had any need to sell. Witness evidence of the family's circumstances is admissible and is usually decisive, together with the land registry file, the municipal valuation records, and the bank records of both the deceased and the transferee. Under the unifying decision of 22 May 1987 the heirs may prove the simulation by any evidence, including witnesses, notwithstanding the general rule that a written transaction may be contradicted only in writing.
Where the complaint is not that the will gives too much to one person but that the will itself is defective, the remedy is the action for annulment, iptal davası, under Articles 557 to 559 of the Civil Code. Under Article 557 a will may be annulled where the testator lacked the capacity to make it, whether through age, mental incapacity, or a condition affecting judgment at the time of making; where the will was the product of mistake, fraud, duress, or undue influence; where its content or the conditions attached to it are unlawful or contrary to morality; or where the formal requirements of the type of will concerned were not observed. The forms are the official will before a notary or the judge of the civil court of peace with two witnesses under Articles 532 to 537, the handwritten will written entirely in the testator's own hand with the year, month, and day, and signed, under Article 538, and the oral will declared to two witnesses in an emergency under Articles 539 to 541, and a defect in any required element, such as a typed handwritten will, a missing date, or a disqualified witness, is a ground for annulment.
Annulment, unlike abatement, removes the disposition entirely, and the property passes under any earlier valid will or under intestate succession. Under Article 558 the action may be brought by any heir or legatee with an interest in the annulment, and may be directed at the whole will or at particular dispositions. Under Article 559 the action must be brought within one year from the date on which the claimant learned of the will and of the ground for annulment, and in any event within ten years from the opening of the will against a defendant in good faith and twenty years against a defendant in bad faith. As with abatement, the moment of knowledge has to be established carefully, and the one year period runs from knowledge of the ground, for example from the receipt of medical records establishing incapacity, rather than merely from knowledge of the will. The plea of nullity may be raised as a defence at any time.
Inheritance disputes involving foreign heirs or foreign deceased add a procedural layer that must be understood before the substantive claims are considered.
Under Article 43 of the Code on Private International and Procedural Law, Law No. 5718, actions concerning inheritance are heard by the court of the deceased's last domicile in Türkiye or, where the deceased had none, by the court of the place where the estate assets are located, and under Article 20 Turkish law applies to immovable property in Türkiye regardless of the deceased's nationality. Turkish courts regard their jurisdiction over immovable property located in Türkiye as exclusive, so a foreign judgment dividing a Turkish property, or ordering its transfer, will not be recognised or registered here under Article 54 of Law No. 5718, and the abatement, collusion, and annulment claims described in this guide must be brought before the Turkish courts in respect of Turkish real estate whatever the courts of the deceased's home country have decided.
Where the deceased or an heir is a foreign national, or where the succession is governed by foreign law as to movable assets, the certificate of inheritance, mirasçılık belgesi, is obtained from the civil court of peace rather than from a notary, since the notary's jurisdiction under the Notaries Law is confined to cases in which the family relationships appear in the Turkish population registry and no foreign law question arises. The court application requires the apostilled and translated civil status documents of the deceased and the heirs, and, where foreign law governs the movable estate, evidence of that law. Our guide to obtaining a certificate of inheritance covers the procedure.
Everything described in this guide can be conducted under a power of attorney, notarised and apostilled abroad or signed at a Turkish consulate, and heirs do not need to travel. In disputed estates it is often better that a lawyer rather than a family member deals with the other side, both because the communications between the parties become evidence and because the deadlines described above are not extended for an heir who was negotiating.
The registration of the heirs at the land registry on the basis of the certificate of inheritance, and a later sale or other disposition of the inherited property, are different steps with different requirements. Official guidance from the Ministry of Family and Social Services confirms that the inheritance tax clearance document may be supplied after the initial registration of the heirs, at the subsequent transaction where it is required, rather than as a precondition of registration itself; registration does not, however, remove the heirs' obligation to file the inheritance tax declaration under Law No. 7338 within the statutory period and to pay the tax. Where reserved shares have already passed through the estate and the question is the mechanics of the transfer, our guide to inheritance transfers in Türkiye sets out the steps.
Most reserved share litigation is the product of estate planning done badly or not at all, and a testator who wishes to favour one heir, to provide for a second spouse, or to leave something to a person outside the family can usually do so within the disposable portion without inviting a dispute. Estate planning through a will or an inheritance contract must adhere to the Turkish inheritance law rules on form and on the reserved share, and a will drafted with the assistance of a lawyer who has calculated the reserved shares and the disposable portion on the testator's actual family and assets, and who has used the official form before a notary so that capacity and form cannot later be questioned, achieves the testator's wishes while respecting the compulsory shares the law protects. A testator who wishes to transfer property during his or her lifetime should do so openly, in the proper form of a donation, and should consider whether the transfer will be added back under Article 508 and whether it is intended to be subject to hotchpot, denkleştirme, under Articles 669 to 675, rather than disguise it as a sale, since a disguised sale is the transaction most likely to be unwound after death. Where disinheritance is intended, it must be made in a will, stating the ground under Article 510, and the ground must be capable of proof; a disinheritance without a stated and proven ground is reduced to the disposable portion under Article 512. Securing the proper documentation early, including the civil status records that will support the certificate of inheritance, also helps heirs establish their entitlements without delay after the death.
An heir who suspects that his or her reserved share has been infringed should establish the estate before arguing about it, and should do so within weeks rather than months, because the one year periods for abatement and annulment run from knowledge and the court will not accept that an heir who had the will in hand did not know of the infringement. The first step is the certificate of inheritance, which establishes the heirs and their statutory shares and is the document on which every subsequent application depends. The second is the land registry records for every property the deceased owned or was believed to own, including the transfer history, takyidat and tedavül records, which is where lifetime transfers to one heir become visible with their dates, recorded prices, and transferees; access to the registry history depends on the applicant's standing as an heir and on the claim, and a lawyer under power of attorney can obtain it with the certificate of inheritance. The third is the bank, vehicle, and company share records of the deceased, obtained through the court or the relevant institutions, which show the movable estate and may show payments, or their absence, connected with the recorded transfers. With these in hand the heir and the lawyer can calculate the reserved shares, identify the dispositions that infringe them, decide which action or combination of actions the facts support, and file within the periods. An heir who begins by writing to the favoured sibling, or by negotiating through the family, uses up the one year period and generates correspondence that the other side will produce as acquiescence.
Reserved shares are protected, but not absolutely. Article 510 of the Civil Code permits disinheritance in a will on specified serious grounds, which must be stated and proved, and Article 513 permits a protective disinheritance of an insolvent descendant. Outside those cases a disposition infringing the reserved share is reducible by abatement.
Descendants, as to one half of their statutory share; each parent, as to one quarter; and the surviving spouse, as to the whole statutory share when inheriting with descendants or parents and three quarters otherwise. Siblings have had none since 2007.
An abatement action is barred one year after the heir learns that the reserved share has been infringed, and in any event ten years after the opening of the will for testamentary dispositions or the opening of the succession for other dispositions, under Article 571. The period is preclusive and applied by the court of its own motion.
No. It reduces the disposition to the extent needed to restore the reserved share, testamentary dispositions first and then lifetime gifts, the most recent first. Annulment, which removes the disposition entirely, is a different action on different grounds.
A recorded sale concealing a gift intended to defeat the heirs may be challenged as muris muvazaası by an action for cancellation of title and re-registration, which is not subject to the one year abatement period. The absence of payment is strong evidence but not decisive on its own; the court examines the price, the transferee's means, the deceased's continued use, the timing, and the family relationships.
No. Because the simulated transaction is void, the claim to correct the registry is not subject to a limitation period. Missing the abatement deadline does not, however, convert an abatement claim into a collusion claim; simulation must be proved in its own right.
Yes, in the alternative: cancellation of title on the ground of simulation and, failing proof of simulation, abatement of the gift to the extent it infringes the reserved share, provided the abatement period has not expired.
Yes, under Articles 557 to 559, for lack of capacity, mistake, fraud, duress or undue influence, unlawful or immoral content, or failure to observe the required form. The action must be brought within one year of learning of the will and the ground, and within ten years of the opening of the will, or twenty against a defendant in bad faith.
By medical records from the period, hospital and prescription records, the evidence of treating doctors and of witnesses to his condition, and, where necessary, a report from the Forensic Medicine Institute on the records. A notarial will is harder to challenge on capacity because the notary and witnesses attest to it.
No. The estate can be administered and disputes litigated under a power of attorney. Where an heir or the deceased is a foreign national the certificate of inheritance is obtained from the court rather than a notary.
Not effectively. Turkish courts regard their jurisdiction over immovable property in Türkiye as exclusive under Law No. 5718, Turkish law applies to it under Article 20, and a foreign judgment dividing it will not be recognised or registered here.
It runs from the date you actually learned of the infringement, which is ordinarily the notification of the will's contents by the court. Late notification delays the start, but once you have the will the period runs regardless of where you live.
Yes, under Article 508, gifts made in the five years before death other than customary presents, revocable gifts, and gifts made with the evident intention of evading the reserved share rules are added back to the estate for the calculation and may be abated under Article 565.
Where the disposition is of a specific asset that cannot be divided without loss of value, Article 564 allows the beneficiary to choose between keeping the asset and paying the value of the excess, or surrendering it and receiving the value of the disposable portion.
Official guidance allows the clearance to be supplied at the later transaction where required rather than at the initial registration, but the inheritance tax declaration must still be filed within the statutory period and the tax paid.
Obtain the certificate of inheritance, the land registry records with transfer history for every property, and the bank and vehicle records, through a lawyer under power of attorney, calculate the reserved shares, and file within the one year period. Do not spend that period negotiating with the favoured heir.
The reserved share under Article 506 of the Turkish Civil Code is the limit on freedom of testation, and the three actions that enforce it, abatement under Articles 560 to 571, cancellation of title for collusive lifetime transfers under the Court of Cassation's 1974 unifying decision, and annulment of a will under Articles 557 to 559, differ in their grounds, their evidence, their effect, and above all their deadlines. Abatement and annulment are lost one year after the heir learns of the infringement or the ground; the collusion claim alone is not time barred, and it alone can unwind a disguised sale entirely. For foreign heirs, Turkish courts have exclusive jurisdiction over Turkish real estate, the certificate of inheritance comes from the court, and every step can be taken by power of attorney. The heir who establishes the estate from the registry and the records within weeks of the death, calculates the shares, and files within the year preserves every remedy; the heir who negotiates first preserves, at best, the one that has no deadline.
We act for heirs in abatement, collusive transfer, and will annulment proceedings before the Turkish courts, obtain certificates of inheritance and registry and bank records under power of attorney, calculate reserved shares and the disposable portion, and advise testators on wills, lifetime transfers, and disinheritance that will withstand challenge. For a review of your position as an heir or as a testator, our legal team can examine the estate and set out the steps available under the current law.
Source check update: 27 September 2026. General information, not a determination of any heir's rights or a promise of litigation success.
To see how the estate is divided between a spouse, children, parents and siblings, and which reserved shares a will cannot reduce, try our inheritance share calculator.
