Freezing a Debtor's Assets in Türkiye Before Judgment: Interim Attachment (İhtiyati Haciz) for Foreign Creditors (EBL 257–266)

Interim attachment lets a creditor freeze bank accounts, receivables and property on the strength of an unpaid, unsecured claim, often within days and without the debtor being heard, provided the creditor then keeps to a chain of short statutory deadlines.

A foreign supplier has delivered goods to a company in Istanbul. The invoices are three months overdue, the debtor’s e-mails have become vague, and a contact in the market mentions that the debtor is moving stock to a related company. By the time a claim is filed, served abroad, tried and enforced, the accounts will be empty. This is the situation for which Turkish law provides interim attachment, the ihtiyati haciz of Articles 257 to 268 of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law (İcra ve İflas Kanunu, Law No. 2004, “EBL”).

Interim attachment is a provisional measure that freezes the debtor’s assets, including bank accounts, receivables from third parties, movables and real property, on the strength of a money claim that has not yet been adjudicated. It is fast, it is usually granted without the debtor being heard, and it works in a country where bank accounts can be identified and frozen through the enforcement offices within days. It also carries a price: the creditor must lodge security, is liable if the attachment proves unjustified, and must then run through a sequence of short deadlines that turn the provisional freeze into a permanent one. Each of those points is examined below against the current text of the Law. The provisions were read in full before this article was written; the periods stated are those in force in September 2026.

1. What Interim Attachment Does, and What It Does Not

Interim attachment does not decide the debt and does not transfer money to the creditor. It places the debtor’s assets, up to the amount of the claim, under the control of the enforcement office so that they cannot be sold, transferred or paid away while the creditor obtains an enforceable title. Once the creditor has that title, whether through an enforcement proceeding that the debtor does not successfully oppose or through a judgment, the interim attachment converts into a final, executable attachment and the assets are realised in the ordinary way (Article 264(5)).

Its place in a recovery strategy is therefore at the very beginning. A foreign creditor who first sends a demand letter, then negotiates, then sues, and only at the enforcement stage discovers that the debtor has no attachable assets, has used the tools in the wrong order. The strategic question at the outset is whether the claim qualifies for interim attachment, and if it does, whether to seek it before or at the same time as the main proceeding. For creditors who intend to pursue the claim in Türkiye, interim attachment ordinarily precedes both the enforcement proceeding and the action, as described in our overview of commercial debt recovery in Türkiye.

2. Who Qualifies: Article 257 and the Two Exceptions for Unmatured Debts

Article 257(1) allows the creditor of a money debt that is due (vadesi gelmiş) and not secured by a pledge (rehinle temin edilmemiş) to have the debtor’s movable and immovable property, and its receivables and other rights, whether in the debtor’s own hands or in the hands of third parties, attached provisionally. Three points in that sentence deserve attention.

First, the claim must be a money claim. A claim for delivery of goods, for specific performance or for a declaration does not qualify; a claim for damages does, provided it is expressed in money and is due. Second, the claim must be unsecured by a pledge: a creditor holding a pledge or mortgage over the debtor’s assets is expected to enforce that security rather than freeze other assets. Third, the debt must have fallen due. A foreign creditor whose contract provides for payment sixty days after invoice cannot attach on day forty, however clear the risk.

Article 257(2) relaxes the maturity requirement in two situations. Attachment of a debt that is not yet due is available (i) where the debtor has no fixed domicile, or (ii) where the debtor, in order to escape its obligations, is preparing to conceal or remove its assets or to abscond, is absconding, or is carrying out fraudulent transactions that infringe the creditor’s rights. The second ground is the one that matters commercially: transfers of stock to related companies, the sudden assignment of receivables, the closure of the trading premises and similar signs, documented convincingly, can bring forward the date at which a creditor may act. Where attachment is granted on this basis, Article 257(3) provides that the debt becomes due against the debtor, so the creditor can proceed to enforcement as if the maturity date had arrived.

The grounds must be evidenced, not asserted. Article 258(1) requires the creditor to produce evidence that will satisfy the court of the claim and, where relied on, of the grounds for attachment. In practice the file consists of the contract, the invoices and delivery documents, the correspondence in which the debtor acknowledges the debt or fails to dispute it, any negotiable instrument such as a cheque or promissory note, and, for an unmatured claim, the evidence of asset removal. Documents in a foreign language must be filed with Turkish translations.

3. Where to Apply, and What the Court Does With the Application

Article 258(1) sends the creditor to the court competent under Article 50. That provision applies the venue rules of the Code of Civil Procedure to money claims by analogy and adds the place where the contract underlying the claim was concluded. For a foreign creditor this ordinarily means the commercial court of first instance at the debtor’s registered seat or at the place of performance of the contract, and the choice among available courts is a tactical one that depends on where the assets are and how quickly the local enforcement offices act. A jurisdiction clause in the contract in favour of a Turkish court is respected; a clause in favour of a foreign court or of arbitration does not, in itself, prevent a Turkish court from ordering interim attachment, which is a provisional measure, although the subsequent steps must then be aligned with the agreed forum.

The court may decide with or without hearing the parties (Article 258(2)). Applications are ordinarily determined on the documents alone, because a hearing would give the debtor the warning that the measure is designed to avoid. A decision refusing the application must be reasoned, and the creditor may appeal it to the regional court of appeal; where the decision was given at a hearing in the presence of the parties, the party against whom it was given may also appeal. The regional court decides such appeals as a priority and its decision is final (Article 258(3) and (4)).

4. The Creditor’s Security and Liability for a Wrongful Attachment

Interim attachment is granted on the creditor’s account. Article 259(1) makes a creditor who obtains an attachment that proves unjustified liable for all loss suffered by the debtor and by third parties, and requires the creditor to lodge security of the kind provided for in the civil procedure rules. The amount is fixed by the court. No security is required where the claim rests on a court judgment (ilam); where it rests on a document treated as equivalent to a judgment, such as a notarised acknowledgment of debt of the kind listed in Article 38, the court has discretion (Article 259(2) and (3)). The debtor’s action for compensation is brought before the court that ordered the attachment (Article 259(4)).

A foreign creditor faces a second layer. Article 48 of the Private International Law and Procedure Act No. 5718 provides that a foreign natural or legal person who brings an action, intervenes in one or starts enforcement proceedings before a Turkish court must provide security, in an amount fixed by the court, to cover the costs of the proceedings and the loss of the other side; the court exempts the claimant on the basis of reciprocity. Türkiye is a party to the 1954 Hague Convention on Civil Procedure, whose Article 17 exempts nationals of contracting states from security for costs, and bilateral treaties produce the same result for other countries. Whether the exemption applies, and how it interacts with the Article 259 security, should be established before the application is filed, because the court will not release the order until the security it has fixed is lodged.

The liability under Article 259 is real. A creditor who freezes a debtor’s operating accounts on a claim that is later dismissed will face a claim for the loss the freeze caused, and the security is there to fund it. The practical answer is not to avoid attachment but to attach proportionately: to identify the assets that cover the claim and to ask for no more than the claim and its accessories.

5. Executing the Order: Ten Days, the Enforcement Office and the Bank Notice

An attachment order is executed by the enforcement office, not by the court. Article 261(1) requires the creditor to ask the enforcement office at the place where the decision was given, or at the place where the assets are, to execute the order within ten days of the decision; if the creditor does not, the order lapses of its own motion. The ten days run from the decision, not from the lodging of security, so the creditor should have the security ready when the application is filed.

The levy itself follows the ordinary attachment provisions of Articles 79 to 99 (Article 261(2)). Real property is attached by an entry in the land registry; vehicles by a record in the traffic register; movables at the debtor’s premises by the enforcement officer in person. Bank accounts and other receivables in the hands of third parties are attached by a notice of attachment under Article 89. The notice tells the bank that it may thereafter pay the debt only to the enforcement office and that payment to the debtor is not valid. The bank must, within seven days of service, inform the office if it disputes that it owes anything to the debtor; if it stays silent a second notice follows, and the debt is then deemed to exist in its hands, subject to the further seven-day and fifteen-day steps and the negative declaratory action set out in that Article. Since 2012 the notice may be served on the bank’s head office so as to cover all its branches, which is how account-holding institutions are ordinarily approached. Complaints about the manner in which the attachment is executed go to the enforcement court (Article 261(3)).

The enforcement officer draws up a record of the attachment. Where the debtor or the third party was not present, Article 262 requires the record to be served on them within three days. That service starts the debtor’s seven-day period to object under Article 265 and, in the debtor’s absence at the levy, the creditor’s seven-day period under Article 264.

6. Turning the Freeze Into Recovery: The Seven-Day Steps in Article 264

Interim attachment is a bridge, and Article 264 sets out how the creditor must cross it. Where the attachment was obtained before enforcement proceedings or an action had been started, the creditor must, within seven days of the levy or, if the levy took place in the creditor’s absence, of service of the record, either file a request for enforcement (takip talebi) with the enforcement office or bring the action on the claim (Article 264(1)).

If the creditor chooses enforcement and the debtor objects to the payment order, the creditor must, within seven days of service of the objection, apply to the enforcement court for the objection to be set aside or bring the action for annulment of the objection before the ordinary court; if the enforcement court refuses to set the objection aside, the creditor has a further seven days from the refusal to bring the action (Article 264(2)). Where the attachment was obtained during a pending action, the creditor must start enforcement proceedings within one month of service of the judgment (Article 264(3)).

The sanction is uniform. If the creditor does not take the required step within the period, abandons the action or the request for enforcement, or loses the action, the interim attachment becomes void (Article 264(4)). If, on the other hand, the debtor does not object to the payment order, or the objection is set aside or annulled, or the action succeeds, the interim attachment converts into an executable attachment without any further levy (Article 264(5)). The creditor then proceeds to realisation.

Two practical consequences follow for a foreign creditor. First, the choice between enforcement proceedings and an action should be made before the attachment application is filed, because the seven-day period is too short to design a strategy afterwards. A claim on a promissory note or cheque points to enforcement; a claim under a disputed contract points to an action, possibly with enforcement started in parallel to keep the attachment alive. Second, the periods run in calendar days and against the creditor alone; a public holiday or a delay in obtaining a translated power of attorney does not extend them.

7. The Debtor’s Defences: Objection, Appeal and Release Against Security

The debtor is not without remedies, and a creditor should anticipate them. Under Article 265(1) the debtor may object to the grounds for attachment, to the jurisdiction of the court and to the security, within seven days of the levy if the debtor was present at it, or of service of the record if not. Third parties whose interests are affected may object within seven days of learning of the attachment to the grounds or to the security (Article 265(2)). The court hears the parties and examines the objection confined to the stated grounds; it may accept, vary or reject the objection (Article 265(3)). Its decision may be appealed to the regional court of appeal, which decides as a priority and finally, but the appeal does not stay execution of the attachment (Article 265(4) and (5)).

Independently of any objection, Article 266 allows the debtor to have the attachment lifted by depositing money, or a pledge, shares or bonds acceptable to the court, or by giving a mortgage over real property or a guarantee from a reputable bank. Before enforcement proceedings have started that request goes to the court that ordered the attachment; afterwards, to the enforcement court. A solvent debtor who wishes to keep its accounts working will often take this route, which from the creditor’s point of view is a satisfactory outcome: the security replaces the frozen assets and the claim proceeds against it.

Finally, the debtor may challenge the underlying claim in the ordinary way, by objecting to the payment order or defending the action. Those defences are decided on the merits and, if they succeed, release the attachment and expose the creditor to the liability in Article 259.

The table below brings together the periods that govern the procedure.

For a foreign creditor the procedure rewards preparation: a complete evidence file with translations, a power of attorney in the required form, the security arranged in advance, a decision on the route to be taken after the levy, and a local team able to act at the enforcement office within the ten-day and seven-day windows. Handled that way, interim attachment is the single most effective tool Turkish law offers against a debtor who has decided not to pay. Our asset tracing and recovery practice combines it with the actions for annulment of fraudulent conveyances under Articles 277 and following where assets have already been moved.