Time Barring in Limitation Periods

The periods concerning the exercising rights prescribed in the Code of Civil Procedure, Administrative Judicial Procedure Law, Code of Criminal Procedure and Execution and Bankruptcy Law shall be suspended and not run until 30.04.2020 starting from the date of 13.03.2020. As of the start date of the suspension period, the limitation periods that are fifteen days or less remaining to expire shall be deemed extended for fifteen days starting from the day following the period end date. The extended period may be prolonged on condition that it applies only once, by a Presidential decree and it does not exceed 6 months.

The following limitation periods are excluded from the scope of this regulation:

  1. those are outlined in-laws for crime and punishment, misdemeanor or administrative sanction, and disciplinary incarceration or preventive detention,
  2. those are outlined in Law No. 5271 regarding the protective measures,
  3. those are related to the procedures completing the interim injunction regulated in the Law No. 6100.

Within the scope of Law No. 2004 and others regarding the proceedings;

  1. If a date of sale announced by the enforcement and bankruptcy offices regarding the assets or rights falls within the suspension period, the enforcement and bankruptcy office shall assign a new date for the sale of such assets or rights, after the suspension period ends, with no further applications required. In such a case, the sale announcement shall be made only on the electronic platform, and no fees shall be charged for that announcement.
  2. Payments by consent made within the suspension period shall be accepted, and either party may request proceedings that are in favor of the counterparty be made.
  3. Concordatum term shall continue to bear consequences for the creditor and the debtor during the suspension period.

Execution Proceedings and Attachment Orders

By the Presidential Decree No. 2279, to be effective from the date of 22.03.2020 (including this date), it has been ruled to suspend all the enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings -other than those that are related to maintenance receivables- until 30 April 2020 (including this date), not to file any further requests for enforcement or bankruptcy, and not to enforce or execute any preliminary seizure decisions. In this scope, it shall proceed to accept receivable payments in the enforcement offices for the attachment orders that have been finalized before the decree. The employers shall continue to make payments to the enforcement offices by deducting the salaries of their employees if there is an attachment procedure completed before 22.3.2020.

Notaries

As of 23.03.2020, all notary public offices have started to work alternately on weekdays. One day odd-numbered notaries shall give service and the following day notaries with even-number.

Land Registry and Cadastral Transactions

Within the framework of measures against the Coronavirus outbreak, The General Directorate of Land Registry and Cadastre shall not accept any requests in the provincial directorates "except transactions for sales, mortgages, sales-mortgages and land registry transactions by formal deeds" until 04.05.2020. Such transactions may only be carried out at the appointed time with the appointment system.

Restrictions to Businesses Imposed by the Central and Local Administrations

As per the circular issued by the Ministry of the Interior on 24.03.2020:

  1. All markets in districts/cities shall offer service between 09:00-21:00 hours
  2. The maximum number of customers in the market area at the same time may only be one-tenth of the total area (excluding warehouses, administrative offices, etc.) that is allocated directly to the customer
  3. All public and intercity public vehicles (including intercity buses) in the districts/cities shall accept 50% of their passenger capacity as per the number specified in their vehicle licenses and the manner of sitting in such vehicles shall prevent the passengers from getting in contact with each other. If not, administrative sanctions shall be imposed.

Judicial activities that will continue during this period

  • New enforcement proceedings regarding maintenance may be commenced and filed, and already filed execution proceedings may proceed during this period. We hereby would like to note that if the maintenance is secured with judgment and other receivable items are included in the same judgment, the judgment order may be enforced as a whole, however, it will only proceed for receiving maintenance.
  • Decisions regarding child delivery and the establishment of a personal relationship with the child have been suspended unless an interim injunction is ordered.
  • It is still possible to make payments to enforcement files. If the payments do not require a degree list, they can be transferred to the creditors by completing the accounting transactions. If the receivable is paid or at the request of the creditor, attachment orders or seizure annotations may be removed and the files may be executed.

With the last amendment, we can briefly state that the practices that many courts have ruled informally since 16.03.2020 discontinued and the time barring limitation periods have been stopped retrospectively as of 13.03.2020, by adopting an official manner and preventing individuals not to lose their rights, giving the priority to human health so as not to compel people to choose between their health and rights.

In this manner, we would like to inform you that our Law Office will continue to work after 30.04.2020 for your files that are already filed or planned to be in courts or enforcement and bankruptcy offices, without losing any rights in the course of this period and process, since the judicial activities have been ceased until that day with the exceptions mentioned above.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.