Spousal Consent in the Family Home: Sale, Mortgage and the Land Registry

In short

Spousal consent speaks, from the document, the door of the sale and of the mortgage transaction in the family home. The procedure for entering the annotation on the land registry is not in this article.

The notary's consent should show the block and parcel and the kind of transaction.

In a rented dwelling, eviction intersects.

At the land-registry appointment in Ankara, the order of the papers is looked at.

Related articles: land-registry check.

A single name appearing on the land registry does not mean that dwelling is only one spouse's property and the other has no say. The dwelling lived in together inside the marriage can enter the protection of the family home. The family home annotation is the making of this protection into a state that third persons can also see on the land register.

This text is for general information. How the annotation is entered on the land registry is in the article how a family home annotation is entered. This page speaks the decision of the sale, of the mortgage and of the other spouse's consent; it does not repeat the steps of entering it on the register. Inside family law, the dwelling stands apart from custody and from maintenance.

For spouses who live in Ankara, or whose immovable is in Ankara, the transaction runs at the land-registry directorate where the immovable is recorded. The office address does not choose the competent authority.

What does the family home mean, and what does the annotation do?

The family home is the dwelling the spouses live in together, which forms the centre of the marital union. A summer house, an investment flat or a land-registry record that is never lived in is not counted as the family home in every file. Actual residence, the children's school, the subscriptions and the record of settlement are facts often looked at in practice. If there is no residence, the land-registry record alone does not of itself justify the annotation.

The function of the annotation is to write the protection onto the register. A protection that is not written can still be debated between the spouses; the buyer, the bank and the land-registry officer can proceed, however, by thinking the transaction is a single owner. If the annotation is visible, the consent document becomes the threshold of the door in most transactions. If it is not visible, the action for cancellation later, and the debate on good faith and on reliance on the land register, lengthen.

The protection can also cut limiting rights such as a mortgage, alongside the sale, the gift and the transactions that in fact take the dwelling out of hand. Which transaction is tied to consent is read according to the statutory frame and the kind of the concrete disposition. The sentence every bank transaction is forbidden is not used in this article. The loan and the mortgage depend on whether the dwelling is the family home and on the manner in which the consent was taken.

The annotation does not change to whom the property belongs. The owner can still be the name on the land registry. What changes is the limit of the freedom of disposition, and third persons' being informed. This separation should not be confused with the calculation of the share in the divorce. The annotation does not calculate the participation share; it keeps the dwelling at the centre of shelter of the marital union.

How is the annotation entered, and which documents are looked at?

The order often followed in practice is this:

1. Making concrete that the dwelling is the family home: residence, the marriage and the identity of the immovable.
2. Checking the land-registry record and the owner particulars.
3. Preparing the identity, the marriage document and, if there is one, the certificate of settlement.
4. Applying to the land-registry directorate where the immovable is recorded.
5. Documenting whether the annotation was entered on the register.

At the land-registry directorates in Ankara, the appointment and the list of papers can change from period to period. A fee, a day and a counter number are not fixed in this article. An incomplete marriage document, or a wrong block and parcel, stops the transaction. The application of the spouse who is not the owner is possible within the frame the statute recognises; the land registry is not obliged, however, to accept the character of the dwelling without a document.

The annotation being requested without the owner spouse's consent can surprise the other side. Surprising is not the aim. The aim is to write the balance of shelter and of disposition onto the register. If there is a hidden preparation of a sale, the annotation informs the buyer and the bank. Being informed is not a promise of winning the action; it cuts the blind proceeding of the transaction.

On a dwelling that is the subject of a lease, the land-registry annotation is not always the same tool. In a rented family home the protection intersects with lease law and with the other spouse's position. Even if the contract is signed by one person, if the fact of living together stands, it is not correct to disregard the character. This intersection is read separately in the eviction and termination file.

How do the sale, the mortgage and the consent work?

On a disposition over the family home, the other spouse's consent can be sought. The consent should be sufficient as regards form, clarity and the subject of the transaction. The word our house does not take the place of the signature on the land-registry line. A consent approved by a notary, or the documentation the statute accepts, is asked for according to the kind of transaction.

A sale without consent can stop at the land registry. If it does not stop and registration happens, a debate on cancellation and on registration can be opened later. The buyer's good faith is read differently according to whether the annotation stands on the register. If there is an annotation, the claim I did not know weakens. If there is no annotation, the protection between the spouses and reliance on the land register can conflict. The conflict does not produce the same judgment in every file.

A mortgage is a disposition separate from the sale. Showing the dwelling as security can put shelter at risk as much as taking it out of hand in fact. The check of consent therefore comes onto the agenda in the mortgage too. When the bank sees the annotation, it asks for the consent document. If there is no document, the loan may not close. This does not mean the loan is forbidden; it is the risk of a transaction without a document.

Paths such as a gift, care until death and a transfer of a share also carry the same question of consent. The change of the name does not mean the residence ended. A disposition made before the residence ends produces a more visible friction on a register that carries the annotation.

The article a check before the land-registry transfer explains the reading of an attachment, a mortgage and an annotation in the general language of the land registry. The family home annotation is the marriage face of that list. The buyer should read not only the owner's identity, but also the annotation line.

When is the annotation lifted, and what does the divorce do?

The divorce judgment ends the marriage; it does not always erase the land-registry annotation of itself. If with whom the dwelling will stay, the date of the eviction and that the annotation will be lifted are written in the protocol, the land-registry transaction finds a basis. If they are not written, a photocopy of the divorce may not suffice at the counter. In a contested file, if the measure for the dwelling and the order of residence stand separately, the lifting can be postponed.

The spouses can request the lifting together. A one-sided petition is not enough if the other side's residence and the child's benefit exist. If there is a court decision, the scope of the decision is read: is it only the divorce, the allocation of the dwelling, or the removal of the annotation? If the scope is narrow, the land registry does not make a wide reading.

The character of the dwelling can end in fact. A long abandonment, a move to another dwelling and the facts of letting it can open the character to debate. The debate does not mean the annotation falls automatically. The register does not update the fact of itself; a basis is required.

Whoever the liquidation of the property regime leaves the dwelling to as a share, the fate of the annotation is tied to that share and to the residence. If the share stays with the other spouse and the residence continues with one spouse together with the child, the annotation and the eviction ask for a separate sentence. A mixed sentence does not produce a transaction at the land registry.

What is looked at in the practice in Ankara?

In Ankara the family home files appear both at the land-registry directorate and at the family court. The land registry conducts the transaction whose document is complete. The court speaks the disposition without consent, the measure and the ancillaries of the divorce. The tempo of the two institutions is not the same. The volume does not change the legal existence of the annotation.

Living in Çankaya, in Kızılay or in Ümitköy does not have the competent land-registry directorate chosen by the name of the neighbourhood. The block and parcel and the land-registry area are the basis. An application to the wrong directorate loses time; it does not extinguish the right. For a third-person buyer, the annotation reduces the surprise action. Reducing is not extinguishing. If consent was taken in a sale that carries the annotation, the transaction can run. If it was not taken, either the land registry stops or a risk of cancellation arises later. The rate of the risk is not written as a percentage in this article.

In the meeting on the housing loan and the mortgage, when the bank sees the annotation it asks for the consent document. If the document is delayed, the closing of the loan spills. The spill does not mean the annotation is unjust. In a rented family home the land-registry annotation is not always the same tool; lease law intersects. The intersection is read separately in the eviction file. If there is no sentence of lifting the annotation in the divorce protocol, the land-registry counter may not be content with a photocopy of the divorce. Not being content does not lock the annotation for ever; it asks for a basis.

Within the frame of Konar Hukuk, this page explains the consent in the language of the transaction and of the document, and not in the language of fear. A single name on the land registry can give birth to the concern that the other spouse stays uninformed of the sale or of the mortgage. The concern does not take the place of the consent document.

A lawyer in the family field separates the consent to the sale from the consent to the mortgage. A lawyer in the family field does not think the annotation is the consent itself. A lawyer in the family field does not count the single name on the land registry as the result that the other spouse's consent fell.

How is the consent document read at the land-registry appointment?

The consent approved by a notary should show the immovable that is the subject of the transaction by block and parcel. The sentence consent for all my property can stay insufficient in the concrete sale. If the date of the consent is after the date of the transaction, the land-registry directorate asks the order. Consent by a power of attorney is looked at on the authority line of the attorney. If the authority is narrow, the sale stops.

The consent to the mortgage should carry the amount of the loan and the bank's title. A consent whose amount is left empty opens a debate at the counter. The bank's valuation does not remove the character of the family home. The valuation does not take the place of the consent document. If registration happened while there was no consent, the action for cancellation and for registration runs separately within the frame of cancellation of the land registry. This page does not copy the skeleton of that action; it speaks the land-registry moment of the disposition without consent.

An oral statement I consent to the sale, given on the day of the divorce hearing, does not protect the buyer in every file unless it is entered on the land register. The minute may not be the land-registry directorate's automatic basis. The basis is a consent in the proper form, or a court judgment. If the consent contradicts the measure of shelter in the dwelling lived in with the child, the court's measure is given priority. The measure does not lock the consent to the sale for ever; its scope is read.

At the land-registry appointment in Ankara, an incomplete marriage document stops the transaction before the debate on consent. Stopping does not mean the absence of consent. First the chain of identity is read, then the consent line.

Why making the annotation visible is of use

The family home annotation does not change the name on the land registry; it makes the limit of the disposition visible. Visibility does not solve the distrust between the spouses; it does not leave the third person's transaction blind. A blind transaction can turn into an action for cancellation that lasts for years. An early annotation can help to reduce that blindness. It does not guarantee.

Reading the land-registry record while the documents are in hand is a calmer path than seeing a surprise annotation on the day of the sale. This text is a general frame. Residence, the marriage and the parcel change according to the concrete event. There is no definite prohibition of sale, and no promise of lifting.

On this page Konar Hukuk explains the dwelling as a subject of shelter and of the register, and not as an object of advertisement. The concrete land registry and the current legislation are read together.

Conclusion

This article is for general information. The document, the period and the procedure of the concrete event should be read separately; there is no promise of an outcome from memory. The protection of the dwelling is within the frame of the Turkish Civil Code.