For an heir living abroad a Turkish succession file rarely arrives as a single document: alongside the will there is a record showing that it was deposited with the notary and, after the death, the instruments of transmission. This page sets out the notary’s duty of safekeeping and the documents it produces.
The record of deposit
The first paragraph of article 69 of Notaries Law No. 1512 provides that notaries keep wills delivered to them in open or sealed form and draw up a record to that effect. The words “open” and “sealed” describe how the will was delivered to the office and are kept distinct in translation: in the case of a sealed will the content does not appear in the record, only the delivery is noted. The record carries its own date and register number, different from those of the will.
Notice to the civil registry
The same paragraph provides that, so that information may be given on the death of the person who made the wills kept and the other dispositions on death drawn up by notaries, the situation is notified in writing to the civil registry offices where those persons are registered. This notice brings the existence of the will into the registers and may appear in the file as a separate document. The name of the institution and the place of registration are kept in their Turkish form.
The chain after death
The second paragraph provides that, where death is notified by the civil registry authority or proved by an official document, notaries deliver to the public prosecutor, to be forwarded to the competent justice of the peace, certified copies of the wills kept at their office and of the instruments of disposition on death drawn up by them. The chain runs through three authorities: notary, prosecutor, justice of the peace. All three names are kept separate in translation; a simplified rendering such as “sent to the court” would hide the division of roles that only those names reveal.
Certified copy and original
The paragraph says that what is delivered is a certified copy: the original remains at the notary’s office. The document reaching an heir abroad is therefore usually a copy bearing a certification record. That record forms a distinct block in the translation, and the indication of where the original is held is also part of the document. The opening of the will and its communication to the heirs follow a separate procedure, dealt with in the judicial section of this site.
Three dates to preserve
Such files contain at least three dates: the date of the will, the date of the record of deposit and the date of the instrument of transmission. They may fall in different years, and only the dates show the order of the chain; when they are written in the target-language format, day and month are not transposed. No assessment of the validity of the will or of the effect of its content is added to the translation. Acte Tercüme translates wills, records of deposit and transmission, and instruments of disposition on death into English.