Short answer: a property without an occupancy permit can be bought and its title deed transferred. But until the building use permit is obtained, the building cannot pass to condominium ownership, a mortgage is closed off in practice, and electricity, water and sewerage connections are restricted by law.
The size of the risk is not settled by one answer. A permit still waiting at the municipality over a missing report and a permit that can never be issued because the building departs from its approved project are two different situations hiding behind the same sentence. The question a buyer should ask is not whether the permit exists, but why it does not.
What Is an Occupancy Permit and What Is It Called?
What is commonly called iskan in daily language is officially the building use permit (yapi kullanma izin belgesi). It is often confused with the construction permit, yet the two sit at opposite ends of the process: the construction permit authorises the start of building, the occupancy permit certifies that the finished building may be used.
Article 30 of Zoning Law No. 3194 makes it compulsory to obtain permission from the authority that issued the construction permit once the building is completed, or for the completed parts where partial use is possible. Permission requires a finding that the building conforms to its permit and annexes and that there is no technical objection to its use.
The same article contains a deadline few buyers know about: municipalities and governorships must conclude the owner's application within thirty days at the latest. If they do not, use of the building is deemed permitted at the end of that period.
Can the Title Deed Be Transferred Without the Permit?
It can. The land registry does not make the sale conditional on the building use permit. If the building has not yet passed to condominium ownership, the sale is made over the construction servitude or the land share and registered in the buyer's name. I covered the steps and cost items of the transfer itself in a separate article on title deed transfer and its 2026 costs.
That the transfer is possible does not close the matter. Construction servitude is a right established over an independent unit in a building that is not yet complete, and it is not the final form of ownership. The move to condominium ownership depends on the building use permit. Condominium Ownership Law No. 634 provides for the automatic conversion of a servitude-registered property once the permit is obtained, and requires the move to condominium ownership within one year of the permit for completed buildings held under construction servitude.
What this means in practice: as long as the permit is missing, the building stays in construction servitude. What you bought is a flat; what the title deed shows is a land share and the servitude attached to it.
Electricity, Water and Sewerage: Where the Law Is Explicit
This is the least disputed part of the subject. Under Article 31 of the Zoning Law, the completion date of a building is the date the use permit is issued, and buildings for which a use permit has not been issued or obtained are not provided with electricity, water and sewerage services and facilities until the permit is obtained.
The article continues with a distinction that matters to buyers: independent units that have obtained a use permit are provided with these services. So a building without a permit as a whole may still contain an independent unit with partial permission, and that unit can be connected. Assuming a flat's position from the state of the building is therefore unsound; what has to be checked is whether permission was granted for that specific unit.
In practice connections are often improvised. Electricity drawn over a site supply, or water taken through a neighbouring unit, is not a durable right, and when it ends there is nothing to put in its place.
Will a Bank Finance It?
In practice banks avoid granting housing loans on a property without a building use permit. The reason is not the loan but the collateral: the missing permit appears as an adverse finding in the valuation report prepared for the property and directly affects its collateral value. As I noted while writing about common mistakes in housing investment, a property whose financing is closed narrows its own buyer pool.
Two distinctions belong here. First, the construction and building completion loans used in ongoing projects are separate products and are not subject to the same rules as a housing loan on a finished building. Second, each bank sets its own credit policy; the definite answer depends on the property and the bank.
Does a Building Registration Certificate Replace It?
It does not, though the matter does not end with that sentence. Provisional Article 16, added to the Zoning Law in 2018, introduced the arrangement known publicly as the zoning amnesty and defined the Building Registration Certificate. The certificate records the building; it does not stand in place of a building use permit.
The part that concerns buyers is in the fifth paragraph: where a building has a construction permit but no use permit, or has no construction permit at all, if a Building Registration Certificate is obtained, all owners consent, and the areas corresponding to public service areas in the development plans are relinquished, a change of use classification and condominium ownership may be established without requiring a building use permit. In that case twice the amount specified in the second paragraph is paid.
All three conditions are needed, and two of them are not in your hands alone. Consent of every owner is the hardest stage in practice in a building with many independent units. The relinquishment condition depends on the development plan and rests on an administrative process.
There is a timing side as well. Building Registration Certificate applications were taken during the 2018 period; at the time this article was prepared there was no arrangement opening a new application route for unpermitted buildings. In other words, obtaining a certificate today for a building that does not hold one is not on the table. For a specific property the position has to be assessed against whether a certificate exists and against the legislation in force.
Who Carries the Responsibility?
The right to apply for the use permit belongs to the owner. In new buildings obtaining the permit is usually the contractor's job under the contract, but the party who must request the document from the authority is the owner. When the flat is transferred to you, that burden moves with it.
Article 30 also states that the permission granted does not relieve the building owner of liability arising from non-compliance with the law, the permit and its annexes. Holding the document does not mean the irregularities in the building have disappeared.
This is why establishing in writing why the permit is missing matters as much as the purchase decision itself. Is a single report outstanding, or does part of the building depart from the approved project? The two do not share a timeline or a cost. As in the article where I set out the contract clauses buyers overlook, what decides the outcome here is not a verbal understanding but an undertaking put on paper.
Seven Things to Check Before You Buy
- Ask for the document, not the answerDo not decide without seeing the building use permit itself. "About to be obtained" is not a document.
- Confirm with the municipalityAsk the zoning department of the municipality the property belongs to about the building's permit and occupancy status. Do not settle for a statement.
- Check the deed: condominium or servitudeLook at which one the title deed records. Construction servitude shows the building is not yet treated as complete.
- Ask about partial permission separatelyIf the building as a whole has no permit, find out whether partial permission exists for the unit you intend to buy. The utility side depends on it.
- Learn the reason for the irregularityA missing document and a departure from the approved project are different problems. The second is a cost left to you.
- Speak to the bank firstIf you are buying with a mortgage, put the property's position to the bank before applying. Learning it at the valuation stage means learning it after the deposit is paid.
- Put liability in the contractWho will obtain the permit, within what period and at whose expense belongs in the contract. This is where a penalty clause earns its place.
| Subject | With occupancy permit | Without occupancy permit |
|---|---|---|
| Sale and title deed transfer | Possible | Possible |
| Nature of the registered right | Condominium ownership | Construction servitude or land share |
| Electricity, water, sewerage | Connections open | Not provided until the permit is obtained (Art. 31) |
| Mortgage financing | Available | Closed in practice, varies by bank |
| Buyer pool | Wide | Limited to cash buyers |
| Liability | Document obtained | Right to apply sits with the owner, passes on transfer |
The legal rows rest on Articles 30 and 31 of Zoning Law No. 3194 and on the provisions of Condominium Ownership Law No. 634. The rows on financing and buyer pool are field observations and vary by bank policy and by property.
Clarifying the legal position of a property before the purchase decision removes most of the problems that are hard to unwind later. Would you like to go through the title deed and permit side of a property you are considering together?