Agreement, Litigation and Sale in Estate Partition

Legal Article · 12 November 2026
Attorney Thomas Andreas Di Constantinople

Estate partition ends the community of heirs and allocates estate assets to the heirs. Under TMK m. 642, every heir may request partition unless required by law or agreement to continue the community. Special provisions, such as postponement, may apply if immediate partition would cause a loss of value.

Partition by Agreement and Through the Courts

If the heirs agree, they may enter into a partition agreement. TMK m. 676 makes the validity of that agreement conditional on written form. A partition agreement differs from transferring an inheritance share to a third party; a transfer agreement with a third party must be executed by a notary and has different consequences.

If agreement cannot be reached, partition in kind, allocation or sale is examined according to the nature of the asset and the applicable rules. Bringing a partition action does not mean that all assets will immediately be sold to third parties in every case. Estate debts and equalisation between heirs may also affect the calculation.

Law No. 7589, published on 31 July 2026, added a special auction rule to İİK m. 114. For immovable property acquired by all owners through inheritance, where no third party other than the heirs holds ownership rights, the first auction in a dissolution of co-ownership by sale is held only among the owner-heirs. This procedure is applied once. However, under provisional Article 1/1 of Law No. 7589, the previous provisions continue to apply to auctions announced before 31 July 2026. The rule cannot be generalised to all co-ownership sales.

Source

Turkish Civil Code No. 4721, m. 642–645, 651, 676–677.

Law No. 7589 (official full text of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye), m. 1, provisional m. 1/1 and m. 26.

This article has been prepared for general legal information purposes.