Turkish court cases while living in the UK

Running a case from another country

Turkish courts do not require a party to live in Türkiye, and an inheritance dispute, a divorce, a property claim or a criminal complaint can be conducted from London through a lawyer (avukat) acting under a power of attorney (vekaletname). The case file lives in UYAP, the judiciary's national IT system; through e-Devlet and the UYAP Citizen Portal you can see filings, hearing dates and decisions from the UK. Your lawyer can ask to attend civil hearings by video through the e-Duruşma system, and parties and witnesses abroad can in some cases be heard by video through SEGBİS, most often in criminal proceedings. What cannot be avoided is paper: the court reads only Turkish, and the Code of Civil Procedure (Hukuk Muhakemeleri Kanunu, HMK) makes the party who relies on a foreign document responsible for its translation.

Power of attorney: two routes

A POA for litigation must name the lawyer and the powers (dava vekaleti), and for divorce, recognition and some property matters it must carry a photograph and specific wording. Made at the Turkish Consulate General in London, Manchester or Edinburgh, it is a Turkish notarial act and needs no apostille or translation; the consulate books one act per appointment and charges per page. Made before a UK notary, it is a foreign document: the FCDO apostilles the notary's signature (e-Apostille £35 or paper £45) and a Turkish translation sworn before an Ankara notary is attached before the lawyer files it. Either route works; the consulate route is cheaper when you can get an appointment, the UK notary route is faster when you cannot. Read giving power of attorney from the UK for the wording lawyers ask for.

Evidence and orders in English

Article 223 of the HMK, quoted below, is the rule. If you rely on a UK bank statement, a tenancy agreement, an English court order, a medical report or a WhatsApp export in English, you file a Turkish translation with it, and the court may, of its own motion or at the other side's request, demand a notarised translation (resmî tercüme). Public documents such as court orders and GRO certificates also need an FCDO apostille before translation; private documents such as contracts and statements generally do not, unless the judge asks. Where an English judgment itself is the subject of the case, for example a custody or maintenance order to be enforced in Türkiye, the separate recognition procedure applies; see recognition and enforcement of UK judgments.

The traffic runs the other way as well: a Turkish judgment, summons or expert report shown to a UK family court, the Home Office or a solicitor is translated into English from £10.00 per page, certification included; see Turkish court judgment translation.

Documents you will need

• UK power of attorney, unless made at the consulate
• UK court orders relied on in the Turkish case, apostilled first
• Statutory declarations and witness statements sworn in the UK
• UK bank statements, contracts, medical reports and correspondence filed as evidence
• Turkish summons and petitions served on you in the UK, translated into English for your own understanding or your UK adviser
• Your passport identity page, translated for the court file if you are not a Turkish citizen

Common pitfalls

• A consulate POA that names the wrong lawyer, omits the photograph, or lacks the express powers a divorce or settlement requires; the court sends it back.
• Filing UK documents without translations and expecting the court to arrange them; under Article 223 the burden is on you and the hearing is adjourned.
• Translating a court order before its apostille, so the apostille is absent from the Turkish text.
• Ignoring a Turkish notice served through the consulate or by international post because it arrived in Turkish; time limits run from service.
• Selective translation of long chat exports; courts prefer the whole exchange with the relevant passages marked.

How we help and what it costs

Evidence bundles vary more than any other job we do. English to Turkish is £6.50 per page of 1,000 characters, and a UK court order with apostille is typically 2 to 6 pages, a POA 2 to 3, a year of bank statements 15 to 30. Notarisation in Ankara is the notary tariff of about £13.50 per page plus £5 handling per document, applied only to the documents the lawyer says need it; the rest can be filed as sworn-translator translations, which keeps costs down. An apostille of a notarised translation is £15. No UK VAT is charged. Scans go to you and to your lawyer within 2 to 5 working days depending on volume; originals by courier for £30, usually straight to the lawyer's office in Türkiye. We have no UK office and no collection. We translate; the lawyer advises on strategy, deadlines and which documents to file. Turkish to English work for UK proceedings is handled by our legal translation team.