Yönetim Planı: The Rulebook That Governs Your Turkish Apartment
Every Turkish building held under condominium ownership has a management plan. It has the force of a contract, it binds you whether or not you have read it, and it was almost certainly agreed years before you arrived. Here is what it controls and how it can be changed.
A contract you signed up to without signing anything
Foreign buyers in Turkey spend a great deal of attention on the title deed and almost none on the document that will actually govern daily life in the building. That document is the yönetim planı — the management plan — and under Article 28 of the Condominium Law (Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu No. 634) it has the status of a contract binding all the flat owners.
The point that catches people out is in the same article. The management plan and any amendments to it bind not only the owners who agreed them but also their universal and particular successors, along with the manager and the auditors. When you buy a flat, you inherit the plan. You are not asked to sign it, you are not offered the chance to negotiate it, and the fact that you had not read it is not a defence.
What goes into it is set by the same article: the manner of management, the purpose and manner of use, the fees payable to the manager and auditors, and other matters relating to management. That is a wide brief. In practice a management plan can determine whether you may run a business from your flat, what you may do to the facade, how costs are divided, and how much say you have in any of it.
This guide sets out what the plan controls, how the owners’ assembly that administers it actually works, what majorities are needed to change anything, and what to ask for before you commit. It pairs with our guides to aidat and service charges in Turkey and to kat irtifakı versus kat mülkiyeti, which explains the form of ownership that brings the plan into force in the first place.
Key Thresholds Under Law 634
Condominium Law No. 634, consolidated text
The owners’ assembly, step by step
The kat malikleri kurulu is the body that applies and amends the plan. Articles 29 to 33 of Law 634 set out how it has to operate, and the procedural rules matter as much as the voting ones.
The assembly must meet at least once a year
Under Article 29 the owners’ assembly meets at the times stated in the management plan and, if the plan says nothing, within the first month of each calendar year. Complexes are on a longer cycle: at least once every two years, or failing a stated time, in the first month of the second calendar year. A building that has not held a meeting in years is not operating lawfully, and that is worth knowing before you buy into it.
An extraordinary meeting needs a third of owners, or the manager
The assembly can be convened at any time at the request of the manager, the auditor, or one third of the flat owners. Notice must reach every owner at least fifteen days before the requested date, by a signed notice or registered letter, and it must state the reason for the meeting. A meeting called without that notice is open to challenge on procedure alone.
The first meeting needs more than half the owners present
Article 30 sets the quorum as more than half of the flat owners counted both by number and by land share, and decisions are taken by majority of votes. Both limbs have to be satisfied: a handful of owners holding large land shares cannot form a quorum on their own, and nor can a crowd of owners holding small ones.
A failed quorum triggers a second meeting on easier terms
If the first meeting cannot be held for want of a quorum, the second is held no later than fifteen days afterwards, and the first notice must already say where and when. At that reconvened meeting the decision threshold drops to an absolute majority of those who actually attend. This is the single most consequential procedural rule in the statute, because a well-organised minority that turns up can carry an ordinary decision that a majority never voted on.
Votes are counted per unit, with a cap
Article 31 gives each owner one vote regardless of the size of their land share. An owner of several units gets a vote for each, but their total can never exceed one third of all votes however many units they own. A unit in joint ownership is represented by one person the co-owners authorise. An owner whose own interests are directly the subject of a decision may attend the discussion but may not vote on it.
Decisions go in a notarised book, and dissent is recorded
Under Article 32 decisions are written into a book with consecutively numbered pages, each page bearing a notary seal, and signed by all owners present. Anyone voting against signs while stating the reason for their dissent. That record is what you ask to see before you buy: it is the building’s history of disputes, spending decisions and unresolved arguments, in one place.
Six things a management plan can decide for you
Article 28 gives the plan authority over the manner of management, the purpose and manner of use, officers’ fees and other management matters. In practice that reaches a long way into how you use what you own.
How the building’s costs are divided
Article 20 sets defaults: caretaker, boiler operator, gardener and watchman costs are shared equally, while insurance premiums, maintenance and repair of common areas, the manager’s salary and the running costs of shared installations are shared in proportion to land share. Those defaults apply unless the owners have agreed otherwise, and the plan is where they do.
What each unit may be used for
Article 24 prohibits hospitals, dispensaries, clinics and pharmaceutical laboratories in any unit outright. In a unit registered as a dwelling, premises such as a cinema, bar, club, restaurant, patisserie, workshop, printing house or shop may only be opened by a unanimous decision of the owners’ assembly — a genuine veto for every single owner.
What you may change in the common parts
Under Article 19 no owner may carry out construction, repairs or installations in the common areas, or even repaint the exterior a different colour, without the written consent of four fifths of all owners. The exception is narrow: consent is not required where a court has established that a defect is damaging the structure and needs urgent repair, or that strengthening the building is compulsory.
Who manages the building, and for how much
The plan fixes the fees payable to the manager and the auditors, and sets out the manager’s duties. Article 35 supplies a default list where the plan is silent, covering execution of assembly decisions, maintenance and repair, insuring the building, and collecting advances. The plan can expand on all of it.
Complexes run on a single plan
Under Article 70 a toplu yapı — a multi-building complex — has one management plan covering every building and shared area, binding every owner in it. Article 69 then layers the governance: block assemblies for block matters, parcel assemblies, island assemblies, and a complex-wide representatives’ council above them.
Provisional management, and when it must end
A plan may provide for a provisional management arrangement until the complex-wide representatives’ council is formed. Article 73 caps it: provisional management may run until at most one year after the complex is completed, and ends in any event ten years after the first building permit was obtained. Developer-run management is not meant to be permanent.
What vote do you actually need?
Every threshold below is from the consolidated text of Condominium Law No. 634. The last column answers the question owners ask most: is an ordinary majority enough, or does this need something heavier?
| Decision | Required majority | Article | Simple majority enough? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary decision of the assembly | Majority of votes, with a quorum of over half of owners by number and land share | Art. 30 | Yes |
| Decision at a reconvened second meeting | Absolute majority of those attending | Art. 30 | Yes |
| Appointing the building manager | Majority of owners by both number and land share | Art. 34 | Yes |
| Electing an auditor | Majority by number and land share | Art. 41 | Yes |
| Improvements and additions to common areas | Majority by number and land share | Art. 42 | Yes |
| Construction, repair or a new exterior colour in common areas | Written consent of four fifths of all owners | Art. 19 | No |
| Amending the management plan, single building | Four fifths of all flat owners | Art. 28 | No |
| Amending the management plan, complex | Two thirds, as amended on 7 May 2026 | Art. 70 | No |
| Opening a bar, restaurant or shop in a unit registered as a dwelling | Unanimity of the owners’ assembly | Art. 24 | No |
What to ask for, and what to look for in it
The management plan is a public-facing document in the sense that matters: its existence and date are noted in the declarations column of the condominium register, and the plan is held with the founding documents of the condominium. Ask your lawyer or agent to obtain the current version together with the minutes book kept under Article 32. Reading the two side by side tells you more about a building than any viewing will.
In the plan itself, look first at the use restrictions. If you intend to let the property, run a business from it, or keep animals, the plan is where any prohibition will sit, and a prohibition there binds you from the day you complete. Separately from the plan, letting a Turkish property to short-stay guests engages its own permit regime, which we cover in our guide to the short-term rental permit every owner now needs. Both have to work for your plan to be viable, and the building’s rules are the one people forget to check.
Then look at the cost allocation. Article 20 provides a default split, but the plan can vary it, and plans drafted by developers sometimes allocate shared facility costs in ways that fall unevenly on particular blocks or unit types. Note too that Article 20 is explicit that an owner cannot escape a share of costs by giving up the right to use a facility or arguing they have no need of it. A ground-floor owner still contributes to the lift unless the plan genuinely says otherwise.
Look at the minutes book for the pattern of decisions. Repeated failed meetings, decisions carried at reconvened second meetings by small numbers, recorded dissents, or a long-running dispute with the manager all tell you something about how the building is run. Under Article 41 the assembly supervises the manager continuously and may replace them at any time where there is just cause, and accounts are audited every three months where the plan sets no other interval. A building that does none of this is not necessarily a disaster, but it is a building where you will have less recourse than the statute intends.
Finally, check whether the building has a manager at all. Article 34 makes appointment compulsory where the property has eight or more independent units. Where the owners cannot agree or cannot convene to appoint one, any owner may apply to the local magistrate’s court, which will appoint a manager with the same powers and responsibilities; a court-appointed manager cannot then be replaced by the assembly for six months unless the appointing court permits it for good reason. That route exists precisely because deadlocked buildings are common.
For the wider picture on owning and running a Turkish property from abroad, see our guides to property management in Turkey, Turkish rental law and reading the encumbrances on a title deed. If you are still choosing a property, our guide to apartments for sale in Turkey covers how to read a listing and a deed, and the full library sits in our Turkey property guides.
Want the management plan read before you commit?
We obtain the current yönetim planı and the assembly minutes as part of our standard due diligence, and translate what they mean for how you intend to use the property.
Yönetim planı — frequently asked questions
What foreign owners ask most about Turkish building rules, assemblies and managers.
Read the building before you buy the flat
We obtain the management plan and assembly minutes, check the title deed record and annotations, and tell you plainly whether the building's own rules allow what you are planning to do with the property.
