A person living in Germany or a German company with a receivable against a debtor in Türkiye does not necessarily have to travel to Türkiye to pursue payment. With an appropriate power of attorney, enforcement, mediation and court proceedings can generally be handled by a lawyer admitted in Türkiye. Before starting enforcement, however, the legal basis of the claim, maturity, identity of the debtor and any jurisdiction, governing-law or arbitration clauses should be reviewed.
Contracts, invoices, orders, delivery or performance records, bank movements, account statements and correspondence should be assessed together. Where the debtor is a Turkish company, its exact registered name, registry details and current address matter. Proceedings against the wrong legal entity can create a separate procedural dispute. Limitation periods also vary with the type of claim, so older receivables should be checked before any step is taken.
A creditor does not always need to obtain a court judgment before pursuing a due monetary claim in Türkiye. Where the claim is suitable, ordinary enforcement by way of general attachment may be commenced without a prior judgment. The enforcement office serves a payment order on the debtor. The debtor may object to the debt or jurisdiction within seven days of service. A timely objection stops the enforcement process to the extent challenged.
The next step depends on the documents and the nature of the dispute. Depending on the statutory conditions, the creditor may seek removal of the objection before the enforcement court or bring an action for annulment of the objection before the competent court. For an itirazın iptali action, the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law generally provides a one-year period running from notification of the objection to the creditor.
If no effective objection is filed and the enforcement becomes final, the creditor may proceed to attachment. Bank accounts, receivables held by third parties, vehicles, real estate and other attachable assets may be pursued under the statutory procedures. Starting an enforcement file, however, does not mean that the debtor necessarily has assets from which the claim can actually be collected.
Commercial debt collection often involves confusion between mandatory mediation and enforcement. Mandatory mediation is a procedural precondition before filing certain lawsuits. It is not, as a general rule, a prerequisite for commencing ordinary enforcement for a monetary receivable.
If the debtor objects and the dispute qualifies as a commercial case, mandatory mediation under Article 5/A of the Turkish Commercial Code may be required before a subsequent lawsuit. The provision covers specified commercial actions concerning monetary receivables, damages, annulment of objections, negative declarations and restitution. Consumer, employment, lease and other special categories may be governed by different pre-action requirements.
In some files, the practical value of the claim depends not only on proving it but also on preserving assets until recovery becomes possible. A creditor with a due monetary claim not secured by a pledge may, if the statutory conditions are met, seek provisional attachment. More restrictive conditions apply to claims that are not yet due.
Provisional attachment is not automatic. The creditor must present evidence sufficient to satisfy the court as to the claim and, where relevant, the grounds for the measure; security may also be required. General financial difficulty is not the same as a concrete risk of asset dissipation. The application should therefore be based on the actual facts and documents of the case.
An existing German court judgment can materially strengthen the creditor’s position, but it is not directly enforceable in Türkiye merely because it was issued in Germany. Türkiye is outside the EU system for the circulation of civil and commercial judgments. As a rule, coercive enforcement in Türkiye requires an enforcement decision, or tenfiz, under Turkish Private International Law No. 5718.
The Turkish court examines the statutory conditions, including finality and enforceability of the foreign judgment and, depending on the case, reciprocity, exclusive Turkish jurisdiction, public policy and respect for the defendant’s right to be heard. Recognition alone is not necessarily sufficient to collect a monetary award by compulsory enforcement. If a German judgment already exists, its enforceability in Türkiye should therefore be assessed before bringing a new claim on the underlying debt.
An individual creditor may authorise a Turkish lawyer through a power of attorney covering the relevant enforcement, mediation and litigation steps. If the creditor is a German company, the authority of the person signing on behalf of the company must also be documented. Whether German notarial powers of attorney, commercial-register documents or other public documents require an apostille and Turkish translation depends on the document and its intended use. Powers of attorney executed before a Turkish consulate follow a different route.
It is usually unnecessary to obtain notarised Turkish translations of every German-language invoice, agreement and email at the outset. The documents that will actually be relied on should first be identified, after which the required translations can be prepared in the form accepted by the relevant authority or court. An apostille is also not a general certification mechanism for every private-law document; its principal function concerns authentication of public documents.
The principal amount is only one part of the recovery calculation. The date of default, contractual interest terms, commercial nature of the transaction, currency, partial payments and enforcement or litigation costs must be considered separately. On 31 July 2026, Türkiye changed the statutory-interest mechanism under Law No. 3095. Claims spanning different periods should therefore not automatically be calculated using one fixed rate for the entire period.
The appropriate route depends on the overall file. Immediate ordinary enforcement may be efficient in one case, while litigation, provisional attachment or enforcement of an existing German judgment may be preferable in another. The legal strength of the receivable and the existence of attachable assets in Türkiye are distinct issues. A sound recovery strategy addresses both.
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An inheritance in Türkiye may include property, bank accounts or business interests, even when the family lives in Germany. Much of the administration can be handled through a representative in Türkiye. First establish the heirs and liabilities, then identify each institution’s requirements for releasing assets or updating records.
A person living in Germany does not always need to travel to Türkiye to sell property there, handle inheritance matters, deal with a bank account or bring court proceedings. Many procedures can be handled through an appropriate power of attorney. Whether the document can be used in Türkiye depends not only on where it was executed, but also on the powers it contains and the formal requirements of the intended transaction. A consular power of attorney, a German notarial instrument, an apostille and a translation each serve a different function in that process.
As a general rule, heirs acquire the estate upon death. Tapu intikali, the land registry transfer of inherited title, records that acquisition in the Turkish land register; it does not create ownership afresh in the manner of a sale. Registration is nevertheless required before an heir can carry out dispositions such as a sale of the property. The transfer therefore does not replace a later partition of the estate or a sale. Turkish Civil Code, Articles 599 and 705.
For administrative registration under Article 27/A of Turkish Civil Registration Services Law No. 5490, the decision must have been issued by a competent authority in Germany, must be final under German law and must not be manifestly contrary to Turkish public policy. The application may be submitted to the competent Turkish foreign mission in Germany or to a provincial directorate of population and citizenship affairs in Türkiye authorised to process these applications. Processing the application through the consulate does not mean that the German divorce case is reheard on its merits.
In a Turkish estate, the family may know that the deceased held a bank account, time deposit, participation account or investment portfolio in Türkiye. In other cases the heirs do not know which institution holds the assets. For an heir living in Germany, the first step is therefore not withdrawing the money but identifying the estate in an orderly way. The location of the assets, the form of inheritance evidence, Turkish inheritance tax and the rights of co-heirs all affect the process.