Turkish building maintenance charges — aidat in everyday use, ortak gider and avans in the statute — are set through an annual operating budget called the işletme projesi. On 22 May 2026, Law No. 7579 amended Articles 35, 37 and 70 of Condominium Act No. 634 and introduced a ceiling tied to the annual revaluation rate. The ceiling is narrower than the summaries in circulation suggest: on the wording of the new final paragraph of Article 37, it applies to the amount foreseen for a provisional operating budget, and only where an operating budget is already in force. What a general assembly of owners approves as the year’s ordinary budget is not subject to that figure. The distinction decides most of the arguments that follow — who may fix the number, against what benchmark, and what an owner who disagrees can actually do about it. Everything below is drawn from the consolidated statutory text as at September 2026, and sits alongside the wider framework covered in our Turkish real estate law practice.
What Law No. 7579 changed
Three provisions of the Condominium Act were touched, all in force from 22 May 2026. The changes are short, and each one moves authority or benchmarking rather than rewriting the underlying scheme.
| Provision | Position before | Position from 22 May 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Art. 35/(d) — manager's duty to collect | Collect "a suitable amount as an advance", and collect a further advance once that one is spent | Collect "the advance until the operating budget is approved" |
| Art. 37/1 — who approves the budget | Framed around the manager drawing up the budget | "The operating budget is approved by the general assembly of owners." A provisional budget is drawn up by the manager only where no approved budget exists, and holds until the assembly approves one, within three months at the latest |
| Art. 37/2-(c) — content | — | Must state "the advance each owner must pay according to the principles in Article 20" |
| Art. 37 — final paragraph (new) | No statutory benchmark | Where an operating budget exists, the figure foreseen for the provisional budget is set at no more than the in-force budget increased by the revaluation rate under repeated Art. 298 of Tax Procedure Law No. 213 |
| Art. 70 — collective-development management plan | Amendment required four fifths of the units represented | Amendment requires two thirds; and management plan provisions contrary to Article 70 do not apply |
One further point is visible on the face of the consolidated text: a sentence in the notification paragraph of Article 37 was repealed by the same amending provision, and the first sentence of that paragraph was extended to require a general assembly resolution accepting the budget, as drawn or as amended, within three months at the latest. The mechanism for turning a manager’s draft into a binding budget therefore now runs through a meeting rather than through the passage of time.
Who approves the budget, and when
Article 37/1 as amended reads in two movements. First: the operating budget is approved by the general assembly of owners. Second: where the owners’ assembly has not adopted a budget, the manager draws up a provisional operating budget without delay, and it holds until the assembly approves one within three months at the latest.
Article 37/2 sets what any such budget must show: the estimated income and expenditure for one year of managing the property; the estimated amount falling on each owner out of total expenditure according to the principles in Article 20; and — in the wording introduced in 2026 — the advance each owner must pay on those same principles. A budget circulated as a single monthly figure per unit, with no revenue and expenditure estimate behind it and no visible application of the Article 20 keys, does not meet the provision.
Article 37/3 governs notification: the budget is notified to owners, or to those actually benefiting from a unit, against signature or by registered letter. That wording matters where a unit is let, because it makes the occupier a proper recipient. On the manager’s side, Article 35/(d) now requires collection of the advance in the first month of each calendar year — or at the time stated in the management plan — until the operating budget is approved, which reads as a bridge to the assembly’s decision rather than a standing power to collect indefinitely. Article 35 opens with a qualification that is easy to miss: the manager’s duties are those set out in the management plan, and the statutory list applies unless the management plan provides otherwise.
Appointing a manager is compulsory where the property has eight or more independent units (Article 34/2), and the manager is appointed by a majority of owners both by number and by land share. Where the Article 34 conditions are met but no manager has been appointed, Article 35 makes the owners jointly responsible for having the listed work done.
The revaluation-rate ceiling: what it caps
The operative sentence is the new final paragraph of Article 37. Read closely, it has three conditions built into it.
It applies only where an operating budget already exists. The paragraph opens with that condition. Where a building has never adopted a budget, there is no in-force figure to index and the paragraph has nothing to work on.
It caps the provisional budget, not the approved one. The amount capped is “the amount foreseen for the provisional operating budget”. The general assembly’s own approval decision under Article 37/1 is not addressed by the paragraph. The practical effect is a limit on what a manager may charge in the interim period before the assembly meets — which is precisely the period in which owners have least control.
The benchmark is the tax revaluation rate. The paragraph ties the increase to the rate “determined and announced under repeated Article 298 of Tax Procedure Law No. 213” for the preceding year, effective from the beginning of the calendar year. Repeated Article 298/B defines that rate as the average price increase in the index in October of the year concerned (October included) compared with the same period of the previous year, and provides for it to be announced in the Official Gazette; the wholesale price index named in the original wording is applied as the producer price index by virtue of paragraph (C) of the same article. The rate is published every November in a Tax Procedure Law general communiqué — it was announced at 25.49% for 2025, at 43.93% for 2024 and at 58.46% for 2023 — so the figure applicable to a given year’s provisional budget is the one announced in the preceding November, and should be taken from that communiqué rather than from a secondary source.
A simple illustration shows how the calculation works. If the operating budget in force provides for TRY 3,000 per unit per month and the revaluation rate announced for the year is 25.49%, the highest figure the manager may foresee in a provisional budget, pending approval of a new budget, is TRY 3,764.70. That is not a ceiling on what the assembly may approve for the same year; it is a ceiling on the amount foreseen for the interim period before the assembly meets. Taking the rate from the right year matters too: the paragraph ties the figure to the rate determined and announced “in relation to the preceding year” and makes the increase effective from the beginning of the calendar year.
What the paragraph does not do is fix what an assembly may resolve. Where a building’s actual costs — a lift renewal, a heating conversion, an insurance premium repriced after a claim — rise faster than the index, the route is a budget approved by the assembly, not a provisional figure. Whether an increase formula written into a management plan can survive alongside the new paragraph is not settled by the statute and has not yet been tested; the safer reading, given the express statement in Article 70 that management plan provisions contrary to that article do not apply, is that plan clauses are read against the amended text rather than over it.
How each owner’s share is worked out
Article 20/1 opens with the words “unless there is an agreement to the contrary between them”, and then sets two different distribution keys.
| Cost category | Distribution key | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Caretaker (kapıcı), heating operator, gardener, watchman — and advances collected for them | Equally between owners | Art. 20/1-(a) |
| Insurance premiums; maintenance, protection, strengthening and repair of all common areas; other costs such as the manager's salary; running costs of common installations — and advances for these | In proportion to each unit's land share (arsa payı) | Art. 20/1-(b) |
| Costs caused by the fault of an owner or of someone benefiting from that owner's unit | Recoverable from that person by those who paid | Art. 20/3 |
Article 20/1-(c) closes the obvious escape routes: an owner may not refuse to pay a charge or advance by renouncing the right to use a common area or installation, or by arguing that the unit has no need of it because of its position. A ground-floor owner still contributes to the lift on the statutory scheme; changing that requires the agreement contemplated in the opening words of the paragraph, not a unilateral decision.
Collecting unpaid charges
Article 20/2 gives the manager, and equally each other owner, standing to bring proceedings or start enforcement under the management plan, the Act and the general law. An owner who does not pay the charge or advance in full owes late compensation of 5% per month for the days in delay. The rate is fixed in the Act itself, and no other provision of the Act lets the general assembly or the management plan set a different one; the carve-out “unless otherwise agreed between them” in Article 20/1 concerns only the sharing of expenses.
Three further mechanisms give the claim unusual strength for what is, in form, an ordinary money debt.
Enforcement leverage. Article 37 provides that finalised operating budgets, and general assembly resolutions on operating expenses, count among the documents specified in Article 68/1 of Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004. That opens the definitive removal of objection route before the enforcement court, available within six months of service of the objection; the same paragraph adds that if removal is not sought within that period, no fresh enforcement without judgment may be brought, and Article 68/2 requires the court to remove the objection where the debtor produces no supporting document. If the creditor sues instead to set aside the objection, Article 67/2 of the same Law provides that a debtor whose objection is found unjustified is ordered, on the creditor’s request, to pay compensation for wrongful denial of not less than twenty per cent of the amount awarded, assessed according to the position of the parties and the case. The wider mechanics are set out in our guide to debt collection and enforcement in Türkiye.
Occupier liability. Under Article 22/1 a tenant, a person with a right of habitation, or anyone else benefiting from a unit on a continuing basis is jointly and severally liable for the owner’s share of charges, advances and late compensation. The sentence that follows is the one landlords and tenants most often overlook: the tenant’s liability is limited to the amount of rent payable, and what the tenant pays is deducted from the rent. That interacts directly with the rules examined in our note on Türkiye’s rent regulations. For an owner who is not in the country, that rule sits alongside a wider set of duties that keep running in their absence — letting permits, tax registration and the capacity to act through a valid power of attorney — collected on our property compliance for non-resident owners page.
Statutory mortgage and priority. Where the debt cannot be recovered by those routes, Article 22/2 allows a statutory mortgage to be registered over the defaulting owner’s unit, for the amount determined by the court, in favour of the other owners, on the written request of the manager where one has been appointed and otherwise of one of the owners. Article 22/3 gives the owners’ claim priority over the defaulter’s other creditors.
Challenging the budget or a resolution
Article 32 makes general assembly resolutions binding on all owners, on their universal and particular successors, and on the manager and auditors. Disagreeing with a figure is therefore not a defence to paying it; the remedy is annulment, and it runs to short periods.
Article 33/1 sets them out. An owner who attended the meeting and voted against the resolution has one month from the date of the resolution. An owner who did not attend has one month from learning of it, and six months from the date of the resolution in any event. The action goes to the magistrates’ court (sulh mahkemesi) for the place where the property is situated. The exception is stated in the same sentence and is the practically important part: no time condition applies where the resolution is treated as non-existent or absolutely void. That is why the characterisation of a defect matters so much — a resolution raising late compensation above the statutory rate has been treated as falling outside the time bar, while the ordinary resolutions passed at the same meeting stood because the month had run.
Meeting formalities are worth checking before the merits. Article 29 allows an extraordinary meeting where an important reason arises, at the request of the manager, the auditor or one third of the owners, on notice given at least fifteen days before the requested date and stating the reason for the meeting, with at least seven days between a first and a second meeting. Article 30 requires a quorum of more than half of the owners by both number and land share, with decisions by majority; where the first meeting fails for want of quorum, the second is held within fifteen days at the latest and decides by absolute majority of those attending.
Non-resident owners: what to do in practice
For an owner outside Türkiye, the risk is rarely the size of the charge. It is that the one-month clock in Article 33 runs while the notification sits at an address nobody checks. Three habits address most of it.
Keep a valid address for service with the management, and treat notification of the budget under Article 37/3 as the date the deadlines start. Ask each year for the approved budget, the resolution approving it and the Article 20 breakdown, rather than the payment figure alone — the breakdown is what makes an error visible. And where the unit is let, remember that Article 37/3 allows notification to the person actually using the unit and Article 22 makes that person liable up to the rent, so the tenancy documentation and the management correspondence need to point at the same person.
Buyers should also raise arrears at the acquisition stage, since a statutory mortgage registered under Article 22/2 attaches to the unit rather than to the person who ran up the debt. The due diligence sequence is covered in our guide to buying property in Türkiye as a foreigner. In collective developments, add the management plan itself to the checklist: Article 70 now requires two thirds of the units represented for an amendment, down from four fifths, and states that plan provisions contrary to that article do not apply — a lower threshold for change than owners who bought under the previous rule may expect.
