Evaluation of Tenant Eviction Through Eviction Commitment

Today, the issue of renting real estate and the landlord-tenant relationship leads to significant disputes. There are multiple legal ways and factors for the landlord to evict the tenant from the property they own.

Today, the issue of renting real estate and the landlord-tenant relationship leads to significant disputes. There are multiple legal ways and factors for the landlord to evict the tenant from the property they own. One of these legal ways, the "Eviction Commitment," is perhaps one of the most frequently encountered disputes.

According to Article 352 of the Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 (TCC), if the tenant, after the delivery of the rented property, has undertaken in writing to vacate the rented property on a certain date but has not vacated it, the landlord may terminate the lease contract by applying to enforcement or filing a lawsuit within one month from that date.

Based on this provision, as a result of the eviction commitment signed with mutual consent between the parties, the tenant commits to vacate the property on the date specified in the commitment.

Validity Conditions of Eviction Commitment

Of course, there are certain conditions regarding the validity of the eviction commitment:

  • Written Form Requirement: The eviction commitment must be in written form. It will be sufficient to sign the eviction commitment on a simple piece of paper.

  • Clear Determination of Date: The date on which the property subject to the eviction commitment must be vacated must be clearly stated.

  • Freedom of Will: The will of the parties must not be defective, and the parties validate this commitment with mutual consent.

  • Timing Requirement: The eviction commitment cannot be signed on the date the lease contract is made. If the eviction commitment is signed on the date the lease contract is made, it will be an invalid commitment.

It should be emphasized that the condition we specified last is an issue that the Court of Cassation has ruled on many times and is also a frequently encountered problem in practice. This problem particularly arises in such eviction commitments that are not prepared by lawyers.

Undated Eviction Commitment

On the other hand, another situation that needs to be addressed is what will happen if the eviction commitment is signed without filling in the dates.

Within the framework of the recent decisions made by the Court of Cassation, an eviction commitment signed by the tenant with the date section blank and delivered to the landlord will be considered valid if it is filled in later and a lawsuit or enforcement proceeding is initiated.

The burden of proof to accept the invalidity of the eviction commitment due to the reasons that the eviction commitment was prepared before the delivery of the rented property or filled in a manner contrary to the agreement between the parties will belong to the tenant party. If the tenant cannot prove these claims, the invalidity of the blank-dated eviction commitment cannot be mentioned.

Relevant Court of Cassation Decision

In this regard, in the Decision of the 3rd Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation dated 24.04.2017, case number 2017/3375, decision number 2017/5834:

"The court ruled that the eviction commitment signed with the preparation date and eviction date blank, which is the subject of the request, is not a document as specified in Article 375/1-c of the same law, although the attorney of the requesting party stated during the trial that this document could not be submitted to the file and that if it had been submitted, a decision in their favor could have come up, this document is a photocopy, even if the original of the document is given, it is not sufficient to prove that the eviction commitment was made together with the lease contract, moreover, the fact that the document was signed blank does not mean the invalidity of the document - signature on blank - the authority to fill the content of the document as desired by the other party is also given by the person signing the document, for these reasons, signing the eviction commitment blank does not mean that its content is outside the will of the signatory and as stated above, the conditions for the renewal of the trial are not met due to the document being signed and given to the other party after entering the property and some time after the lease relationship started, so it was decided to reject the request, the decision was appealed by the attorney.

RESULT: Since there is no inaccuracy in the writings in the file, in the evaluation of the evidence based on the decision and the reasons required by law, and especially in the assessment of evidence, it is APPROVED..."

This situation was also finalized with this judgment.

Timing of Eviction Commitment Preparation

We also mentioned that the eviction commitment cannot be prepared during or before the lease contract. If a commitment is to be created by writing a date, again in Court of Cassation jurisprudence, this period is on average at least one month after the date the lease contract was signed.

Court of Cassation Precedent Unification General Assembly Decision

Regarding the issue, in the Decision of the Court of Cassation Precedent Unification General Assembly dated 04.10.1944, case number 1944/15, decision number 1944/28:

"The eviction commitment given at the time of the first lease contract is not valid. Eviction commitments included in initial lease contracts are illegal and invalid because they render ineffective the provision of lease contracts that allows them to extend automatically by law..."

was decided.

Conclusion

Although the eviction commitment is an important legal tool for the landlord, certain conditions must be met for its validity. In particular, preparing the commitment after the lease contract and complying with the written form requirement are of critical importance. Regarding the validity of commitments prepared with blank dates, Court of Cassation jurisprudence shows that such commitments may be valid under certain conditions.

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