A Payment Order From a Turkish Enforcement Office: The Seven-Day Objection and the Negative Declaratory Action

The seven-day objection under İİK Art. 62, what it stops and what it does not, the creditor's one year and six months, and the 20 per cent indemnity that runs in both directions.

If a Turkish enforcement office (icra dairesi) has served an order to pay on you or your company, the operative fact is the date of service and the operative period is seven days. Under Article 62 of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004 (İcra ve İflas Kanunu, İİK) the debtor must notify an objection to the enforcement office within seven days of service, in writing or orally, and under Article 66 an objection made in time stops the proceedings by operation of law. No reasons are needed for a general objection to the whole debt, and no evidence has to be filed with it.

The objection is not free, however. Turkish enforcement law penalises both a debtor who obstructs a good claim and a creditor who pursues a bad one: the statutory indemnity of not less than 20 per cent appears four times in the Law, and it points in both directions.

What an order to pay actually is

Ordinary enforcement (ilamsız icra) collects a monetary claim without a judgment. Article 58 İİK lists what goes into the enforcement request: the parties, the amount in Turkish lira with the interest rate and its starting date, the deed or, failing a deed, the ground of the debt, and the track chosen. Only if the claim rests on a document must the creditor deposit the original or certified copies when filing; where it does not, nothing is filed at all. The enforcement director does not weigh the merits — under Article 60 he checks that the request contains what the Law requires, then issues the order.

The order carries three demands in one document (Art. 60): pay the debt and costs into the office’s bank account within seven days; deny the signature on the deed relied on separately and expressly within the same seven days, failing which the deed is treated in the enforcement as emanating from you; and, if you neither pay nor object, file a declaration of assets under Article 74, on pain of coercive detention. It is drawn up in two copies, and where they differ the debtor’s copy prevails.

A payment order arriving out of a clear sky is therefore ordinary, and says nothing about the strength of the claim. The machinery that follows it — attachment, garnishment, sale — is described in our overview of debt collection and enforcement in Türkiye.

The right-hand column applies where the claim is carried by a bill of exchange, a promissory note or a cheque; those mechanics are set out in our note on fast-track enforcement of promissory notes and bills of exchange. Reading the top of the order to see which track you are on is the first substantive step: it decides whether you have seven days at an office or five days at a court.

The seven-day objection and its three traps

The objection under Article 62 goes to the enforcement office conducting the proceedings, in writing or orally; if lodged at a different office, that office takes the necessary cost and forwards it immediately to the competent one, and the creditor is notified within three days by formal notice. Three provisions in the same article catch foreign debtors repeatedly.

Partial objections must be quantified. A debtor disputing only part of the debt must state clearly which part and what amount. If he does not, the Law treats the objection as never made — not as a general objection, but as nothing — and Article 66 lets the proceedings continue for the whole claim.

Signature denials must be separate and express. If the deed relied on carries a signature you do not accept, the denial must appear in the objection separately and in terms; otherwise the signature is treated as accepted for the purposes of the enforcement.

A domestic address is compulsory. The debtor or its attorney must notify an address inside Türkiye with the objection. A debtor who later moves without notifying a new domestic address, and whose new address cannot be established in Türkiye by the serving officer, is deemed served at the address given in the creditor’s request. For a company managed from abroad, this is the provision that most often converts a live defence into a final debt.

Two further points shape the drafting. A jurisdiction objection must be made together with the substantive objection under Article 50, and the enforcement court examines jurisdiction first and decides it finally. And under Article 63 the debtor cannot, at the hearing on removal of the objection, change or widen his grounds beyond what the deed relied on shows. The freedom not to give reasons is not a freedom to improvise later.

What the creditor can do next

An objection stops the file; it does not close it. The creditor has three routes, each with its own forum, standard of proof and clock.

Article 68 is the summary route and is deliberately narrow: the creditor must hold a deed containing an acknowledgment of debt whose signature is acknowledged or notarised, or a receipt or document issued by a public office or competent authority within its powers and in due form. If the debtor’s objection is itself founded on such a document, the request is refused. There is a sting for the creditor: if removal is not sought within the six months, no fresh ordinary enforcement may be started for that claim. The one-year period in Article 67 is softer — a creditor who lets it pass keeps the right to sue under the general rules.

Where the creditor obtains a provisional removal on a private deed, Article 69 hands the initiative back: within seven days of the pronouncement or service of that decision the debtor may bring an action for discharge from the debt (borçtan kurtulma davası) — heard only if, by the first hearing, he deposits 15 per cent of the claim in cash or in securities or a bank guarantee letter of the same value. Otherwise it is dismissed.

The 20 per cent indemnity runs both ways

This is what decides whether an objection is a defence or an expensive delay. The Law attaches a floor of 20 per cent to four outcomes, and each is symmetrical.

• Annulment of objection (Art. 67). If the debtor’s objection is found unjustified, the debtor pays; if the creditor is found to have brought the proceedings unjustifiably and in bad faith, the creditor pays. Either award is made only on the other party’s request, and may not fall below 20 per cent of the sum rejected or awarded, calculated on the enforcement request or the claim made in the action. Where the objector is a parent, guardian or heir, an indemnity against the debtor requires bad faith to be proved.
• Removal of objection (Art. 68). If the request is granted on grounds going to the substance, the debtor pays; if refused on the same kind of grounds, the creditor pays — again not less than 20 per cent, on the other party’s request. Collection is deferred if a negative declaratory, restitution or ordinary action follows, and the indemnity falls away for whichever party wins it.
• Discharge action (Art. 69). The losing party pays an appropriate indemnity of not less than 20 per cent of the claim or the sum awarded.
• Negative declaratory action (Art. 72). If the debtor obtained an injunction before the enforcement began and then loses, the creditor recovers from the security the loss caused by late payment, never assessed below 20 per cent. If the debtor wins and the proceedings that forced him to sue are found unjustified and in bad faith, the loss awarded against the creditor may not fall below 20 per cent of the claim pursued.

A fifth floor appears in Article 89 for third parties, below. The reading is plain: an objection filed to buy time on a debt plainly owed turns a 100-unit claim into a 120-unit claim plus costs, and a creditor pressing a claim it knows to be unfounded faces the same arithmetic. Where the underlying relationship is a live commercial dispute, that exposure is usually the reason to move the fight into an ordinary action — a choice that belongs to commercial litigation and arbitration work rather than to procedure alone.

The negative declaratory action, and the injunction that is not available

Article 72 lets a debtor sue for a declaration that he is not liable, before the enforcement starts or during it, and the timing decides what interim protection is possible. An action brought before enforcement begins may carry an interim injunction stopping any enforcement, against security of not less than 15 per cent of the claim. An action brought after it has started cannot: the Law says expressly that a stay of the proceedings by way of interim injunction may not be ordered. What remains is narrower — an injunction preventing money already in the office’s account from being handed to the creditor, against the same 15 per cent floor plus cover for the loss caused by delay. Interim relief is otherwise governed by Article 389 of the Civil Procedure Law No. 6100 (HMK) — a fear that the right will become significantly harder or impossible to obtain, or that delay will cause serious harm — with Article 390 requiring the applicant to establish the merits to the standard of approximate proof and Article 393 requiring implementation to be sought within one week, failing which the order lapses.

If the action succeeds, the enforcement stops immediately and, once the judgment is final, the file is restored in whole or in part without any further decision. If the debtor took no injunction and has meanwhile paid, the action continues as one for restitution; and a person who had to pay a sum he did not owe because he failed to object, or because his objection was removed, may sue to recover it within one year of payment. Either action lies where the enforcement office sits or at the defendant’s domicile.

When the seven days have already gone

Three provisions survive the deadline, and a fourth limits how long the creditor may sit on the file.

Late objection (Art. 65). A debtor prevented from objecting in time by an obstacle for which he bears no fault may object until the realisation of assets is completed. Within three days of the obstacle ending he must produce the excuse with its evidence, the objection with its grounds and documents, and pay the related fees. The court may suspend the proceedings; suspension is not automatic, and the enforcement stops only when the excuse is accepted. Where assets are already attached, the creditor must within seven days of that acceptance either apply to remove the objection or sue under Article 67, or the attachment falls away.

Cancellation after finality (Art. 71). Where the debt and its accessories were discharged after the proceedings became final, or the creditor granted an extension, the debtor may apply to the enforcement court at any time — but only on a notarised document or one whose signature has been acknowledged. Correspondence, ledgers and unsigned statements do not meet that standard.

Complaint (Art. 16). Acts of the enforcement office contrary to law, or unsuited to the facts, may be complained of to the enforcement court within seven days of the act becoming known. Where a right is simply not performed, or left in abeyance without cause, no period applies.

The creditor’s own clock (Art. 78). The right to request attachment lapses one year after service of the order to pay, though time running during an objection or an action is not counted; within that year the creditor may query the debtor’s assets through the national judicial network (UYAP) and attach them electronically. The mirror image, where the file is one’s own, is addressed under debt collection.

Third parties: the Article 89 garnishment notice

Many foreign companies meet Turkish enforcement law without being the debtor. Where the office attaches a receivable owed to the debtor, or goods of the debtor held by someone else, it serves a first attachment notice under Article 89: payment may now be made only to the enforcement office, and payment to the debtor is not valid.

The recipient has seven days to state that it owes nothing or holds nothing, or that the debt was paid, the goods consumed or lost without fault, owned by another, or pledged to it. Silence has a defined price: the goods are deemed held and the debt deemed owed, and a second notice repeats the position with another seven days. If that too passes, the third party is given fifteen days to pay or deliver, or to bring a negative declaratory action where the enforcement is being conducted or at its own domicile; if it delivers proof of that action to the office within twenty days, enforcement against it is suspended until the judgment becomes final. Losing costs an indemnity of not less than 20 per cent of the subject matter, though the action attracts only a fixed court fee. A head office served so as to cover every branch must answer for all of its units, and notices and replies may travel through UYAP with a secure electronic signature, which takes the place of service. A third party may in any event sue the debtor and a creditor acting in bad faith for the return of what it was compelled to pay or deliver.

Running the seven days from abroad

The period runs from valid service in Türkiye, not from the day a head office abroad learns of the file. Under the Notification Law No. 7201, service on a legal person is made on its authorised representative, and where there are several, on one of them; in disputes arising from the business of a commercial establishment, service on the commercial representative is valid, and where the authorised person is absent during usual working hours it is made on any officer or employee present. If nobody is found at the address, or receipt is refused, the document goes to the neighbourhood headman or a police officer against signature and a notice is affixed to the door — and that date counts as the date of service. A closed liaison office does not pause the clock; it starts it.

Service abroad goes through the competent authority of that country, the papers travelling via the ministry concerned, the Foreign Ministry and the relevant Turkish mission. The consular route in Article 25/a — where failure to apply within thirty days makes service effective on the thirtieth day — is open only to Turkish nationals, so a foreign company cannot be served that way.

Instructing counsel remotely turns on the power of attorney. Article 76 HMK requires the lawyer to file the original of a power of attorney drawn up or certified by a notary, or a copy the lawyer certifies as conforming to it; for a client abroad that ordinarily means execution before a Turkish consulate, or before a local notary with an apostille or consular legalisation, plus a sworn Turkish translation. Article 77 lets a court, where delay would cause harm, permit a lawyer to act against a definite period for producing the instrument — a safety valve, not a plan. Because a Turkish lawyer must first check that acting for you creates no conflict of interest with an existing or former client, the creditor’s exact corporate identity and the file number belong in the first message rather than the last, so that the conflict check and the power of attorney run in parallel with drafting the objection.

How we handle a debtor’s file in practice, from the objection to the negative declaratory action, is set out under enforcement defence and negative declaratory actions.