Can a Landlord Keep a Tenant’s Equipment in Turkey? Unpaid Rent and the Right of Retention
Unpaid rent does not make a Turkish landlord the owner of the tenant’s furniture or business equipment. Articles 336–338 of the Turkish Code of Obligations create a defined right of retention over certain movable property in rented premises. The protection is limited by the rent periods secured, the goods’ connection with furnishing or using the premises, seizure exemptions and third-party rights. Where the tenant intends to move or remove goods, Article 338 provides for a decision by the civil judge of peace or enforcement director. A landlord seeking security and a business trying to recover its equipment must distinguish the existence of the rent debt from the right to retain particular items and the procedure for doing so.
Have a general question about this article? Ask anonymously
Start with an immovable-property lease and an identified creditor
Article 336 concerns the landlord in a lease of immovable property. The starting documents are the lease, the premises identification and the rent account. A storage operator’s contractual claim, an equipment hire company’s ownership claim and a landlord’s statutory retention right are different relationships. Using the English word lien for all of them does not make their conditions identical.
Identify who holds the landlord position and who owes rent. A property manager holding keys is not necessarily the creditor or authorised to settle the claim. Likewise, a trading name displayed at the premises may differ from the company that is the tenant. Match the lease, invoices and company details before recording anyone as responsible.
The substantive source is Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098, Articles 336–338. This guide concentrates on the security over goods. It does not treat that security as a substitute for proving the lease, the debt or the authority of the person asserting it.
The secured periods do not make all future rent immediately payable
Article 336 identifies one year of accrued rent and rent for the running six-month period. Those statutory periods define the security’s coverage; they should not be rewritten as an automatic invoice for eighteen immediately payable months in every case. A rent obligation’s maturity and the extent of property securing it are separate questions.
Prepare a period-by-period ledger showing the agreed rent, due date, payments and outstanding balance. Identify a disputed increase rather than silently include it as an admitted debt. Where rent was prepaid, record the period covered by that payment. Its receipt date alone does not show which instalment was discharged.
Keep repair charges, penalties, utilities and other demands separate from rent. Their appearance in the same account does not prove that every item falls within Article 336’s statutory security. The creditor should identify a separate basis for a claim outside the covered rent instead of extending the retention right through accounting labels.
The goods must serve the furnishing or use of the rented premises
Article 336 connects the movable property with furnishing or using the premises. Physical presence is therefore necessary to the described arrangement but is not the whole test. An inventory should explain the function of each item, not merely list everything a landlord found behind the front door.
Record the description, serial number, location and use of the equipment. Items used to operate the premises, stock held for sale, customers’ goods awaiting service and unrelated objects in temporary custody should be identified as different categories. Their treatment requires examination; proximity does not turn every category into the tenant’s available security.
For a business purchaser, the sale agreement should identify the equipment being acquired and its location before completion. Buying the business does not itself resolve a pre-existing landlord claim over particular assets. The business-lease transfer guide addresses the separate consent and continuing-liability questions concerning the tenancy itself.
Goods exempt from seizure are excluded
Article 336 expressly excludes the tenant’s goods that cannot be seized. A claimant must therefore examine the applicable enforcement exemptions rather than assume that every valuable object is available. The exclusion is a legal restriction on the right, not a discretionary concession that depends only on the landlord’s goodwill.
Classify the item and the facts relevant to the claimed exemption. Neither a label saying personal property nor an assertion that equipment is useful for work settles every exemption question. Preserve evidence of actual use and ownership and identify the legal basis relied on in the specific proceeding.
A business should not conceal goods or create retrospective documents to manufacture an exemption. An accurate inventory and a properly presented objection protect the record. A landlord should also avoid an indiscriminate request that ignores the exclusions visible from the documents already available.
A subtenant’s goods are subject to a separate rent ceiling
Article 336 can extend to qualifying goods brought in by a subtenant, but only up to the subtenant’s rent debt to the main tenant. The main tenant’s entire unpaid balance to the landlord does not automatically become the relevant ceiling for the subtenant’s property.
Obtain the sublease, payment records and periods covered by payments between subtenant and main tenant. A landlord’s account against the main tenant cannot establish that separate balance by itself. Conversely, a subtenant’s statement that everything was paid should be supported by the actual payment and allocation records.
The subtenant relationship must also be genuine and properly identified. An employee using company equipment, a contractor working on site and a subtenant are not interchangeable. Record the basis on which the person occupies the space before applying the subtenant paragraph.
Third-party ownership requires more than a sticker on a machine
Article 337 gives priority to third-party rights over goods the landlord knew or should have known were not the tenant’s. It also protects rights over stolen, lost or otherwise involuntarily dispossessed goods. The landlord’s actual or required knowledge and the way possession was lost are therefore legally significant facts.
Preserve purchase and delivery records, equipment leases, custody agreements and communications identifying the owner. A serial number helps connect a document with the physical object. An invoice for a similar model without identifying details may leave a dispute about which machine the document concerns.
The timing of disclosure matters. Record what the landlord received before or during the lease and who communicated it. A genuine third-party owner should not depend solely on an informal conversation that cannot be placed in the chronology, while the landlord should not disregard earlier documents merely because the tenant continued using the item.
Later knowledge of another owner can cause loss of the retention right
Article 337 separately addresses the landlord learning during the lease that goods brought in by the tenant do not belong to the tenant. If the landlord does not terminate for the end of the nearest termination period, the article provides for loss of the retention right over those goods.
This requires a dated record of the knowledge and the tenancy’s relevant termination framework. It should not be reduced to a claim that any letter sent at any time preserves the right forever. The effectiveness of a purported termination and the rules governing the particular lease remain separate issues.
The provision also does not justify assuming an unrestricted right to evict a protected residential or roofed-workplace tenant. The property-security consequence must be read with the applicable tenancy rules. Record the actual notice and contractual calendar rather than promise that third-party equipment automatically supplies a new eviction ground.
Article 338 provides an official decision when removal is proposed
If the tenant intends to move out or take goods elsewhere, Article 338 allows the landlord to retain enough movable property to secure the claim through a decision of the civil judge of peace or the enforcement director. The amount of property affected is linked to the security needed; the paragraph does not authorise taking every item regardless of value.
A request should identify the claim, the premises, the proposed removal and the goods sought to be retained. The relevant ownership and exemption issues should be disclosed. A reasoned valuation helps explain why the requested property is proportionate to the security sought rather than simply convenient for the landlord.
The inventory-preservation mechanism is separately addressed in Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004, Article 270. Obtaining an inventory, preserving the right and pursuing the secured debt are procedural steps to distinguish. Keep the actual decision and all follow-up directions; a private list prepared by the landlord is not itself an official retention decision.
The ten-day return rule is limited to goods covered by a retention decision
Article 338 addresses goods covered by the retention decision that are secretly or forcibly removed. It provides for their return to the rented premises with police assistance within ten days from removal. The decision, the identified items and the actual removal date are central to applying that rule.
This is not a general permission to retrieve any object formerly present in the building or to use force personally. The person relying on the provision should supply the decision and removal evidence to the appropriate authority. A suspicion that stock has decreased is not the same as proof that identified retained goods were removed in the stated manner.
The ten-day period is also not a universal limitation period for every rent claim or every objection to retention. Different steps can have different deadlines. Obtain the complete served documents and the relevant procedural advice rather than use one number from Article 338 as a calendar for the entire dispute.
Retention does not transfer ownership or authorise an informal sale
The purpose of the statutory right is security for the covered claim. The landlord should not describe retained equipment as property acquired in payment simply because the tenant has not paid rent. An agreement transferring an asset in settlement and a security measure keeping it available are different legal acts.
Any realisation of the security must follow the applicable lawful process. Advertising the equipment for private sale, using it in another business or discarding it should not be treated as automatically permitted by Articles 336–338. Preserve its identification and condition while the claim and ownership issues are addressed.
Access to the premises is a separate matter. The landlord-entry guide explains why ownership of the building or possession of a spare key does not create unrestricted entry rights. A security claim should not become a pretext for an unannounced search or removal of unrelated belongings.
Separate objections to the debt from objections to the goods
A tenant can dispute the rent amount, the periods secured, the eligibility of particular goods, an exemption or a third party’s ownership. These are different objections and can require different evidence. A complete response should identify the challenged item and proposition instead of relying on a general statement that the landlord is wrong.
Obtain the application, inventory, decision and proof of service where a proceeding exists. A message sent only to the landlord may not constitute the objection required before the competent authority. Do not remove goods contrary to an existing decision while assuming that a private protest has suspended it.
The third-party owner’s claim must likewise be presented through the appropriate procedure. That owner should provide its own records and authority, not rely solely on the tenant to mention an ownership objection during negotiations. A correct account of the asset’s history is more useful than an unsupported blanket claim that nothing on site belongs to the tenant.
Credit payments and deposits without mixing separate legal mechanisms
Reconcile rent payments, agreed credits and any amount realised or otherwise received against the same debt. The balance should show what remains secured rather than repeat the original demand after partial payment. The payment-allocation guide explains why the particular debt and period paid need to be identified.
A rental deposit is another form of security, not the same right over equipment. Obtain its amount, holder, coverage and release conditions. The deposit-return guide addresses the separate Article 342 framework. The existence of a deposit neither proves that it has already paid the rent nor permits duplicate satisfaction of the same claim.
If the parties settle, identify which debt is paid, which goods are released and who is entitled to collect them. A release of the landlord’s retention claim does not settle a separate dispute between the tenant and the equipment owner unless that issue and its proper parties are included.
Prepare the claim and handover from abroad using one indexed file
| Record | Question it resolves |
|---|---|
| Lease and rent ledger | Who is the creditor and which rent remains unpaid? |
| Item-level inventory | Which goods furnish or serve the premises, and what is their value? |
| Ownership and use records | Do third-party rights or seizure exemptions apply? |
| Sublease account | What rent, if any, does the subtenant owe the main tenant? |
| Decision and service records | What has the authority ordered and which procedural dates are running? |
| Settlement and collection record | Which debt and goods are released, to whom and on what conditions? |
For a lawsuit arising from the rental relationship, the mediation requirement in Law No. 6325, Article 18/B(1)(a) must be checked, together with its specified exception. That lawsuit requirement should not be confused with every urgent preservation or enforcement application. The proposed proceeding must be identified before its prerequisites are stated.
An overseas tenant, landlord or equipment owner should retain original documents alongside translations and authorise each local act expressly. Collecting released goods, acknowledging an inventory and settling a monetary claim are different mandates. Negotiations do not themselves suspend the deadlines in a served decision or enforcement document.
Frequently asked questions
Does unpaid rent make the landlord the owner of equipment?
No. Retention is a defined security right, not an automatic transfer of ownership or permission for a private sale.
Can every item inside the premises be retained?
No. Article 336 concerns qualifying goods serving the premises, excludes unseizable goods and must be read with third-party protections.
Does the rent coverage automatically accelerate eighteen months of payments?
No. Security coverage and the date a particular rent instalment becomes payable are different questions.
Can subtenant goods cover the main tenant’s entire debt?
The statutory extension is limited by the subtenant’s rent debt to the main tenant. Preserve that separate account.
Why does the landlord’s knowledge of another owner matter?
Article 337 protects specified third-party rights and attaches consequences to later knowledge during the lease. The timing and ownership evidence matter.
Is a private inventory equivalent to an official retention decision?
No. Article 338 identifies an official decision for its removal-related retention mechanism. A private list is evidence, not that decision.
Does the ten-day return rule cover any missing item?
It concerns goods covered by the decision and removed secretly or forcibly. Identify the goods, decision and removal date.
Can the tenant ignore the decision after sending an objection to the owner?
A private message does not itself suspend an official measure. Use the applicable procedure and preserve the service record.
Does an existing deposit settle the retention issue?
Not automatically. Establish its coverage and whether it has lawfully satisfied any part of the debt; avoid duplicate recovery.
What should a foreign equipment owner provide?
Provide identifying purchase or lease records, delivery evidence, communications about ownership and the relevant inventory or decision.
Official legal sources
Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098, Articles 336–338; Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004, Article 270; Mediation Law No. 6325, Article 18/B. This English explanation does not replace the governing Turkish text or the procedure applicable to a particular decision.
Ask about retained equipment or belongings
Identify the lease, disputed rent, goods and whether an official decision has been made. Do not send private account credentials or sensitive ownership documents in the initial enquiry.
Istanbul and Mersin offices
Bakırcı & Keskin Law Office is Mersin-based and works throughout Türkiye with an Istanbul and Mersin focus.
Istanbul — Polaris Plaza
Maslak Ahi Evran Caddesi, Polaris Plaza No:21, Floor 9, 34475 Sarıyer/İstanbul.
Mersin — Profit İş Merkezi
İhsaniye Mahallesi, 4903. Sokak, Profit İş Merkezi No:23, Floor 3, Office 14, 33070 Akdeniz/Mersin.
Call +90 552 224 43 66. An enquiry does not establish representation or suspend a legal deadline.
Contact regarding a legal matter
In your first message, you may briefly state the subject, your country or city, and any relevant notification or recent procedural date. Please do not send identity numbers, medical data, or personal documents. Messaging alone does not constitute legal advice or create a lawyer–client relationship.
Discover more from Bakırcı & Keskin Hukuk Bürosu
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.