Transferring your Alanya home to your children: gift, sale or inheritance?

In short

• A gift is the most expensive route in Turkey: the child pays a 6.831% title deed fee, plus gift tax.
• A sale costs a 4% title deed fee, paid by the buyer (the child), but must be a real sale with the money exchanged through a Turkish bank.
• Inheritance carries the lowest tax, but only happens after death and leaves the children more paperwork.
• With a usufruct (intifa hakkı) you can give the home away and still keep the right to use it for the rest of your life.

Gift (bağış)

On a gift, the recipient pays a title deed fee of 6.831% of the value — the declared value, but never less than the municipality’s tax value. That is far more than on a sale.

Gift tax comes on top. Between parents and children the rates are halved, to 5–15%, but the allowance is small: 66,935 lira in 2026. The child must file a declaration within one month of the gift.

The advantage is that the transfer happens now, while you can arrange it yourself.

Sale (satış)

A sale costs a 4% title deed fee, which in practice the buyer — here the child — pays. For children who are not Turkish citizens the same rule applies as to every purchase: the price must be exchanged through a Turkish bank, which sends the currency certificate to the land registry. The money must actually change hands.

If you sell within five years of buying, there may be tax on the gain in Turkey. How it is calculated for someone living abroad must be checked case by case.

Inheritance

When the home is inherited, the usual title deed fee is not charged, and inheritance tax is lower than gift tax: 1–10%, with an allowance of about 2.9 million lira per child in 2026.

The drawback is that the children have to go through the inheritance process afterwards, with a Turkish certificate of inheritance from the court and deadlines for the tax declaration. The guide on inheriting property in Turkey explains it.

Give it away but keep using it: usufruct (intifa hakkı)

You can transfer ownership to your children and at the same time register a lifelong right of use for yourself. The children then own the home, but you can use it for as long as you live.

For the title deed fee, ownership without the usufruct counts as one third of the value and the usufruct as two thirds. The transfer is still a gift on which gift tax is due. What it comes to in your case should be worked out with the land registry before you decide.

What about tax at home?

Many countries, Norway among them, have neither inheritance nor gift tax, but a property abroad usually has to be declared, and a later gain may be taxable where you live. Talk to an accountant about your home country before you choose.

How we help

We work out the options for your home together with the land registry, explain them, and carry out the transfer with an interpreter once you have decided. Nobody needs to travel: it can be done with a power of attorney.