Tajik investors acquiring property in Türkiye increasingly do so as families or business partners rather than as single buyers. A father and adult children pooling savings for an Istanbul apartment, or two Dushanbe-based partners splitting the cost of a commercial unit in Antalya, is now a common pattern. What is less common is a clear legal structure governing what happens once the title deed is signed. Co-ownership without a written framework is one of the most preventable sources of dispute among foreign buyers in Türkiye, and it deserves the same attention as financing or site selection.
Two forms of shared ownership under Turkish law
Turkish property law recognizes two distinct structures for shared ownership, and the difference matters more than most buyers realize. *Müşterek mülkiyet* (co-ownership by shares) gives each party a defined, quantified percentage of the property, which can be sold, mortgaged, or inherited independently of the other owners. *İştirak halinde mülkiyet* (joint ownership) treats the property as an undivided whole belonging to the group collectively, typically used for inheritance situations or specific partnership arrangements, where no individual share can be disposed of without the consent of the others.
For Tajik buyers structuring a purchase from the outset, müşterek mülkiyet is almost always the more practical choice. It preserves each party's ability to exit, transfer, or leverage their share independently, and it avoids the administrative friction of requiring unanimous consent for routine transactions. The share percentages are recorded directly on the title deed (tapu) at the land registry, so this decision needs to be made before the transfer, not after.
Drafting a co-ownership agreement before closing
The tapu records ownership percentages, but it does not record the operational terms of the arrangement: who covers maintenance costs, how rental income is split and by what timeline, what happens if one party wants to sell while the others do not, and how disputes are resolved. A separate, notarized co-ownership agreement (ortaklık sözleşmesi) between the parties should address these points directly. For Tajik families and business partners, this agreement is particularly important because co-owners are often based in different cities or countries, which makes informal, verbal understandings difficult to enforce or even recall consistently over time.
Pre-emption rights : Under Turkish law, co-owners generally hold a statutory right of first refusal (şufa hakkı) if another co-owner sells their share to a third party. This protects existing partners from having an unfamiliar buyer suddenly enter the ownership structure, but it also means an exit sale to an outside party can be delayed or contested. Structuring the agreement to clarify valuation methods and notice periods for internal buyouts reduces this friction considerably.
Dissolution and exit planning
Co-ownership in Türkiye can be dissolved by mutual agreement or, if the parties cannot agree, through a partition lawsuit (ortaklığın giderilmesi davası) that can result in a court-ordered sale of the property with proceeds divided according to registered shares. This process is slower and costlier than a negotiated exit, and it is the outcome that a well-drafted co-ownership agreement is designed to avoid. Building an agreed buyout mechanism, with a clear valuation approach and payment timeline, into the original agreement gives Tajik co-owners a defined path out of the arrangement without resorting to litigation.
Inheritance considerations
Because Tajikistan and Türkiye have different inheritance frameworks, co-owned property held by Tajik nationals can become more complex to transfer across generations than property held individually. Where a co-ownership involves family members across different age groups, it is worth reviewing how Turkish succession rules would apply to each owner's share and whether a will registered in Türkiye, alongside home-country estate planning, would simplify eventual transfers.
Practical takeaway
Shared purchases make sense for Tajik buyers pooling capital across family or business relationships, but the ownership structure and the governing agreement need to be settled before the tapu transfer, not after a disagreement arises. A well-drafted co-ownership agreement, paired with the correct choice between müşterek and iştirak mülkiyet, is a modest upfront cost that prevents a considerably larger downstream problem.