There is a certain amount of confusion amongst our international community at present about the on-going house-door/apartment-door number updating process. You will have heard about the news most likely having consulted these very pages first when The Ege Eye editorial team broke the story.
It is however nothing new as such – a similar development occurred in nearby Didim around eight years ago where a formerly ‘non-existent’ pathway within our estate all of a sudden turned into a ‘street proper’ with corresponding name; needless to say, all previous house numbers were re-assigned and modified. It simply streamlined the entire thing.
Reasons? Manyfold… per example, think existing streets where new blocks have been constructed on, or neighbourhoods where existing streets were extended. Then consider splitting a four-family house into six smaller units and so on and so forth. Then imagine seven plots of land yet one of them laying bare for decades whilst other new homes had been built, all duly numbered from one until five for example. Then in the middle six and seven sprung up – refer to them as 4B or 5A? Very irritating and in all likelihood leading to massive misunderstandings.
Hence let me share with you my family’s story, quite an amazing one and why your friendly commentator’s journalistic verdict is ‘nothing to worry about’ but due note has to be taken as a fair number of legal documents might be changed/might required changing as a result.
We used to reside, or so we thought, in a flat bearing the number 13. At the same time we thought we resided in the corresponding block of flats bearing the number 11. Initially all was well until after an inquiry why when making an application to the local bank branch our address would not pop up, not at all. When we duly combined our street name with our flat number and then door number nothing happened except for a somewhat puzzled expression on the friendly bank branch manager’s face.
TAPU in hand and utilities bills as well, matters progressed. We were told this is not the first incident of this kind with regards to this particular cluster of fixed abodes. Yet eventually we got everything settled and sorted and happily forgot about it.
Of course and once you decide to stay permanently in this great nation Türkiye you are keen to benefit from her manyfold e-government advantages – dare I say a European, perhaps even global role model of how to set up a transparent, fast, efficient form of letting the population getting in touch with government offices and authorities.
In order to do so a visit to the local registration office as well as the nearest post office were required. And then it transpired: according to the population office statistics we had been living in an office and not in a private apartment. A quick look across our neighbour’s small front-yard garden leading to the street gate confirmed and changed everything at the same time: to make matters worse the door sign on the neighbouring house stated ‘11’ – same as ours!
To make an otherwise long story short – over the decades a formerly commercial dwelling had been converted into private apartments. A new house was erected alongside. But the ‘old’ house never adapted to that new environment so to speak. What was supposed to be turned back into a number 9 proudly stayed on as an equally proud number 11.
Late in September of last year light at the end of the resident’s confusion tunnel if one may employ that terminology.
The city administration checked on all title deeds and former and current occupational options quickly deciding that for many years if not decades no commercial entity was present or registered at this block bearing the number 11 although it was supposed to carry the number 9.
Efficient as our fine local town hall service teams are the problem got addressed swiftly, and solved perfectly.
How? The two blocks of flats now encompasses both entities and were redesigned as ‘Number 9 – 11’.
We duly updated all our legal documents including banks et.al. realizing that many neighbours were rather relieved that we had kick-started this short odyssey as everyone was confronted with the same bureaucratic obstacles.
What is underway at present will help our dear town hall management team to more accurately know the exact number of individual fixed abodes, their residents and everything which makes our day to day life smoother. It is another sign of happy life in an every growing fine nation where the quality of life is constantly improving.
I understand from first conversations with local residents that some are worried about how this will all affect their current TAPU, other legal statuses. In our family’s case it actually greatly facilitated to prove those.
There may however be adverse cases where initial confusion leads to misunderstandings.
My best bet would be to address our Town Hall and/or our Citizens Advice Centre should you be in any doubt.
Whatever your favourite number – the month of February is perfect to re-charge ones’ batteries, take stock with regards to making plans for another fabulous year in one of Türkiye’s finest resorts. Enjoy!
