In the ordinary risky building determination process, building owners or their legal representatives may file a technical objection within fifteen days from the last day of the public notice posted by the neighborhood head (muhtarlık ilanı), under the current notification procedure. The time limit for bringing an action against administrative acts under Law No. 6306 is thirty days from notification. A technical objection, an annulment action and a stay of execution serve different functions; filing a petition or bringing an action does not by itself halt all implementation.
A risky building dispute involves both public safety and the right of ownership. For that reason, statements such as “the building looks sound” or “the neighbors do not want demolition” cannot replace a technical report. Likewise, a conclusion that a building is risky does not place a report whose method and data are not disclosed beyond judicial review. As of October 13, 2026, this article addresses the legislation, the application documents and judicial protection together.
A Risky Building, a Risk Area and an Unpermitted Structure Are Different
Under Law No. 6306, a risky building (riskli yapı) is a structure that has reached the end of its economic life, or whose risk of collapse or severe damage has been determined by scientific and technical data. A building may be determined to be risky even outside a risk area (riskli alan). By contrast, declaring an area a risk area or a reserve building area (rezerv yapı alanı) is not the same act as a risk determination report prepared for a single building.
A building with a building permit may still be risky. A structure built without a permit may separately require action under Law No. 3194, because it violates zoning legislation. The existence of an occupancy permit (iskân) does not conclusively show the present safety of the load-bearing system, and a risk report does not by itself remedy past zoning violations.
This distinction matters for the court, the time limits and the method of review. The special judicial provisions on risk area decisions should not be applied automatically to an individual risky building determination. The name, date, number and legal basis of the challenged act, and the administration that issued it, should be identified at the outset.
Who Can Commission a Risky Building Determination?
Owner application and licensed body
The determination is commissioned from institutions or organizations licensed by the Presidency (Başkanlık) under the procedure set out in the Law and its Implementing Regulation. An application by one of the owners may start the process; a unanimous decision of all condominium owners is not a general requirement for a risky building determination. However, the applicant’s status as owner and the applicant’s connection to the building to be assessed must be verified.
Special care is needed where land is registered in shares and different persons own structures on the same plot. Where no servitude of floor ownership (kat irtifakı) or condominium ownership (kat mülkiyeti) has been established, the Regulation organizes the application through the holder of the land share who owns the structure actually standing there. A report on a single building on a parcel cannot be assumed to cover other blocks.
Ex officio determination by the administration
The Presidency or the competent administration may carry out the determination ex officio, have it carried out, or give the owners a period of time. If the determination is obstructed, the written-permission and law-enforcement assistance (kolluk) procedures set out in the law may come into play. If the application is considered unlawful, the remedy is to challenge the act and the technical data through legal channels, rather than to physically obstruct the inspection.
The licensed body’s authority on the date it prepared the report, the transmission of the report to the relevant administration and the inspection carried out should all appear in the file. A contract with a contractor, or a meeting of the building’s residents (apartman toplantısı), does not on its own replace a risky building determination.
On What Aspects Is the Technical Report Examined?
The Regulation provides for the determination of risky buildings according to the technical principles annexed to it. The type and characteristics of the building affect the method to be used. A core sample (karot) can be important, particularly in reinforced concrete buildings, but it is not correct to reduce the risk assessment of every building to the result of a single specimen. The load-bearing system, building geometry, material properties and other necessary data are assessed together.
When preparing an objection, the following points should be examined:
- Whether the report concerns the correct building, block, address and building identifier (bina kodu).
- Whether the version of the technical principles used was the one in force on the date of the act.
- The location, number and method of collection of the necessary samples, and the test records.
- A comparison of the present condition of the load-bearing system with the project.
- Whether floors, use and later alterations were taken into account.
- Where assumptions were used instead of ground or material data, the basis for them.
- A verifiable link between the calculations, the photographs and the conclusion.
The owner’s task is not to carry out a new engineering calculation on their own. However, showing which part of the report is disputed, and why, helps the technical review focus on the right questions. If an independent expert opinion has been obtained, the data and method it used should be compared with the report. Reaching a different result alone does not show that the first report is necessarily wrong.
How Is Notification Made, and When Does the Fifteen-Day Period Start?
Under the current version of Article 3 of Law No. 6306 and Article 7 of the Regulation, the record of the determination is posted on the building, owners are notified through the e-Devlet portal, and a notice is published for fifteen days at the relevant neighborhood head’s office. The risky building determination is deemed notified on the last day of the neighborhood head’s notice. A notice is also published on the Presidency’s website.
Under this system, merely waiting for a postal envelope may cause loss of rights. The start and end dates of the notice, the posting record (asma tutanağı), the e-Devlet notification and a copy of the relevant act should be obtained. The date on which the document posted on the building was seen may not be the same as the day the law treats as notification. If an irregularity in notification is alleged, the mandatory stage that did not take place should be explained with reference to the documents.
A technical objection is made within fifteen days from the last day of the neighborhood head’s notice, by petition to the Directorate in the place where the building is located or, where authority has been delegated, to the relevant administration. Whether it is filed on time and by a competent person must be checked. The registry number and filing date should be kept; it should not be assumed that filing the petition with another institution is unproblematic as regards the time limit.
A two-day special objection in urgent procedures under Article 6/A
Article 6/A of Law No. 6306 establishes a special procedure in areas where there are structures so risky that they must be demolished, or structures severely damaged or at risk of severe damage due to causes such as collapse, landslide, flooding or fire. In the process the Presidency conducts ex officio under this article, the list of risky buildings is posted on the building and published for two days at the neighborhood head’s office. The determination is deemed personally notified by this notice; the owner or legal representative may object within two days. The technical panel decides on the objection within three days.
Accordingly, the fifteen-day period cannot be applied to every risky building act. First, it should be checked whether the notice rests on Article 3 or on the special procedure in Article 6/A.
How Does the Technical Panel Examine an Objection?
The Law provides that objections are examined by technical panels (teknik heyet) made up of university faculty members from the relevant professional disciplines and officials of the Ministry or the Presidency. The objection aims at reviewing the report from a technical and procedural standpoint. The process is not a vote of owners on whether they want the building to be renewed.
The petition should clearly state proof of ownership or representation, the particulars of the challenged report, the dates of notification and posting, the specific grounds of objection and the attachments. If the full report has not yet been provided, a request for access should be made without delay; while awaiting the document, the existing findings should be submitted without letting the objection period lapse. Whether technical explanations submitted later are accepted procedurally should be followed separately.
As a rule, one risk determination report is prepared for each building. The Regulation contains exceptions for objections or court decisions, for reports contrary to the facts, and for specific concrete events affecting the risk status. Therefore, the approach “I will obtain a sound report from another firm, and the first report will fall” is not reliable. The legal framework within which a second review would take place should be determined.
Annulment Action, Time Limit and Competent Court
Article 6/9 of Law No. 6306 provides that an action must be brought within thirty days from notification against administrative acts falling within the law. For an individual risky building determination, as a rule, an annulment action is brought before the administrative court of the place where the property is located. The action is directed against the administration that carried out the act; knowing the name of the private body that prepared the report does not by itself mean that the correct defendant has been identified.
The route of a technical objection must be distinguished from the option of bringing an action directly. Where a technical objection has been filed on time, the rejection decision and its notice should also be shown in the case file. However, it should not be assumed that each new petition restarts the thirty-day period, or that the administration’s reply may be awaited indefinitely. The nature of the technical objection, the first notification, the rejection notice and any applications under Administrative Procedure Law No. 2577 (İYUK) should be assessed together to set the litigation timetable.
A tenant’s right to a technical objection is not the same as the right the law grants to the owner and the legal representative. However, where an eviction or another act directly affecting the tenant is made the subject of an action, the infringement of the tenant’s interest may be examined separately. The owners’ right to sue and the tenant’s legal position should not be equated in a single sentence.
Does a Stay of Execution Prevent Demolition?
Filing an annulment action does not by itself suspend the implementation of the act. Under Article 27 of İYUK, the conditions of manifest unlawfulness, together with damage that is difficult or impossible to remedy if the act is implemented, must be made concrete. Serious technical deficiencies in the report, irregular notification and the imminent danger of eviction or demolition can be explained with the relevant documents.
The former general prohibition on staying acts under Law No. 6306 was annulled by the Constitutional Court (AYM) decision of February 27, 2014, E.2012/87, K.2014/41. Accordingly, it cannot be said that the current text contains such an absolute prohibition. Equally, it cannot be claimed that the court will grant a stay in every application.
The risk determination, the eviction notice and the demolition act may have been made on different dates. The request should clearly state which act it covers; when subsequent acts are issued, whether they require a separate action or application should be assessed. It should not be assumed that the entire transformation process has stopped without reading the scope of the decision given.
Eviction, Demolition Period and the Strengthening Option
The current period differs from the former 60 + 30 day description
Article 5 of the current Law and Article 8 of the Regulation provide that owners be given a period of no more than ninety days to demolish risky buildings. This wording does not mean that every owner has at least ninety days in every case. The concrete period granted by the administration, the notification procedure and the subsequent eviction and demolition stages should be examined separately. The termination of a contract with a contractor for transformation is discussed in the article Termination of a Construction Contract in Return for Land Share.
The sixty-day period plus an additional thirty days described in older decisions and articles should not be converted into today’s rule without stating the date of the act. Finality of the risk determination in the administrative process is not the same thing as the finality of a court judgment. The effect on implementation of bringing an action and of administrative finality should be followed together.
Is a request for strengthening alone sufficient?
Where strengthening is required instead of demolition, the Regulation requires, within the period given to the owners, a determination of technical suitability, a decision taken in accordance with Article 19 of the Condominium Ownership Law (Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu), the preparation of a strengthening project and the obtaining of a permit under zoning legislation. A petition merely stating “we will strengthen” is not sufficient.
To complete strengthening, the period set by the administration must be observed, and afterwards an application must be made to remove the risky building annotation from the land registry. Annulment of the risk determination by a court and removal of the record after strengthening rest on different legal grounds. Under both routes, it should be followed up whether the land registry and administrative records have actually been corrected.
2026 Update: Cuts to Electricity, Water and Natural Gas
The current text of the Regulation examined contains a note that the provision in Article 8/3-c, under which services are not provided to risky buildings not demolished within the period, was stayed by the Fourth Chamber of the Council of State (Danıştay Dördüncü Dairesi) by its decision of February 12, 2026, E.2025/5279. Because of this note, the provision should not be transmitted as an automatic cut-off rule without any current assessment.
What is noted here is a stay of execution; it is not the same as a final annulment judgment. No unverified conclusions should be drawn from the full reasoning of the decision. In a concrete cut-off act, the legal basis, the date of the act, the notification and the current status of the decision should be examined together. Nor does it follow that all other measures that may be taken for life safety have been removed.
The Time-Limit Risk Shown by a Real Council of State Decision
In the decision of the Fourteenth Chamber of the Council of State (Danıştay Ondördüncü Dairesi) dated February 1, 2017, E.2016/8756, K.2017/440, removal of the risky building status and of the demolition was requested on the basis of an annulment decision concerning an earlier technical regulation. In the concrete case, the difference in building type and the earlier proceedings were assessed; on the ground that no new legal situation had arisen, the rejection decision based on expiry of the time limit was upheld.
The importance of this decision for the present article is that a ruling in another file does not create a new time limit for every owner automatically. The historical time-limit description in the decision cannot be used in place of the thirty-day special limit under today’s Law No. 6306. The type of the concrete building, the scope of the earlier decisions and whether the application made actually produces a new act should be examined.
Conclusion
An effective challenge to a risky building determination rests on examining the notice and notification records together with the technical report. The fifteen-day technical objection and the thirty-day action period should be kept distinct; where necessary, a request for a stay of execution should be prepared with concrete grounds. When strengthening, eviction, demolition and correction of the land registry record are followed as separate stages, both the safety purpose and the property guarantees can be assessed soundly.
Related articles: Energy and Pipeline Easement Fees and Rights of Action; Right to Reacquire Expropriated Property and Time Limits; Objection to a Demolition Order and Annulment Action
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a single owner commission a risky building determination?
Yes, an application is possible through a suitable owner; the unanimity of all owners is not a general requirement. Where land is registered in shares and there are several structures, the owner’s relationship to the structure is examined separately.
I did not see the e-Devlet notification; can the period still start?
The current rule treats the last day of the neighborhood head’s notice as the date of notification. Whether all the mandatory elements of the notification were properly carried out should be examined from the documents.
Does a core sample result alone show that the building is risky?
Risk assessment is carried out under the technical principles valid for the type of building. Rather than a single result, all the necessary data and calculations in the report are assessed.
If I bring an action, can I keep living in my home?
Bringing an action alone does not stop eviction or demolition. The relevant acts, the safety conditions and whether the court has granted a stay of execution are assessed together.
Can a risky building report be annulled with a second report?
There is a rule of one report per building, together with the exceptions in the Regulation. A new special report does not automatically eliminate the first act; it is assessed within the technical objection or judicial review.
Sources and legal bases
- Law No. 6306 on the Transformation of Areas under Disaster Risk, consolidated text, especially Articles 2, 3, 5, 6/9 and 6/A; official legislation link.
- Regulation on the Implementation of Law No. 6306, especially Articles 7, 8 and the technical annexes; the stay-of-execution note of February 12, 2026 concerning Article 8/3-c.
- Provincial Directorate of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change (Çevre, Şehircilik ve İklim Değişikliği İl Müdürlüğü) — announcement on notification through e-Devlet and by posting.
- Administrative Procedure Law No. 2577 (İYUK), especially Articles 7, 11, 27 and 34.
- Constitutional Court (AYM), February 27, 2014, E.2012/87, K.2014/41: official decision record; announcement of the decision by the Union of Turkish Municipalities (Türkiye Belediyeler Birliği).
- Council of State (Danıştay) 14th Chamber, February 1, 2017, E.2016/8756, K.2017/440: official full decision text.