Islamic Estate Planning in Turkey (2026): The Complete Checklist

Turkish Islamic estate planning has a peculiar shape: the documents are cheap and quick, the family work is slow and decisive, and the order of operations matters more than in almost any other market we cover, because the plan's legal engine (a unanimous heir agreement after your death) is built entirely out of preparation done while you are alive. This checklist sequences everything: what to do, where, what it costs at the 2026 tariffs, and why each step makes the next one easier. Background reading, if you want the law first: Islamic inheritance under Turkish law.

Step 1: Get the faraid ruling (free, this week)

Call Alo 190 or visit the provincial mufti with your complete family configuration: spouse, children, living parents, deceased children's children, debts, unpaid mahr, prior gifts. Ask for the faraid shares, the wasiyya ruling, and anything configuration-specific (converts, blended families, missing heirs). For anything the family will rely on later, submit a written application and get a written answer. This document is the arithmetic every later step drafts to. How to use the channels.

Step 2: Inventory assets, debts and mahr (free, this month)

List what you own (property with title status, accounts, vehicles, gold, business interests), what you owe, and, explicitly, any unpaid mahr, which is a debt of the estate senior to all division. Note which assets are jointly held and which were already gifted. This inventory feeds the will, sizes the wasiyya third, and spares your family the archaeology that delays every Turkish estate settlement.

Step 3: Decide the wasiyya third (free, deliberately)

Up to one third of the net estate may go to non-heirs and charity, and it is use-it-or-lose-it: unwritten, it simply distributes to heirs. Candidates: ongoing-benefit charity, orphaned grandchildren the shares miss, poor relatives outside the heir list, people of long service. Express it as a fraction, not a lira amount, so inflation cannot hollow it out. The full menu and drafting rules.

Step 4: Execute the notary will (about 3,000 TL, one afternoon)

The resmi vasiyetname at the 2026 tariff: 2,661.62 TL deed plus 80.68 TL per page, two witnesses, central registration, automatic court opening at death. Contents: the wasiyya third, guardianship wishes for minors, the debt and mahr inventory, funeral instructions. It cannot impose faraid shares against reserved share protections, and should not try; that is Step 6's job. The complete process.

Step 5: Write the faraid intent statement (free, same week)

A one-page document, kept with the will: your wish that the estate be divided per the attached Diyanet ruling, your reasons in your own words, and your explicit acknowledgment that the choice belongs to the heirs freely. Not legally enforceable, and that is fine; its job is persuasion at the family table, where enforcement actually lives in this system.

Step 6: Prepare the family for TMK 676 (ongoing, decisive)

The unanimous heir agreement (miras taksim sozlesmesi) is how faraid actually happens under Turkish law, and Diyanet endorses it explicitly. One dissenting heir collapses it, so the work is consent-building: heirs who heard your wishes from you, understand the reasoning, know that mahr and debts come first, and were never coerced. Identify the family member or imam who will shepherd the agreement when the time comes, and brief them. How the agreement works and where it breaks.

Step 7: Use lifetime gifts where consensus looks unlikely (case by case)

Property transferred while alive bypasses succession entirely: hibe is the third tool, useful for pre-positioning assets where post-mortem unanimity is doubtful, equalizing children in ways wasiyya cannot, or housing a vulnerable heir. Limits apply: gifts made to dodge reserved shares can be attacked via tenkis within the lookback rules, and gifts are irrevocable in ways wills are not. Uses and risks.

Step 8: Close the insurance gaps (quotes, one afternoon)

Debts come off the estate before any division, so debt protection is estate planning: credit life on participation bank financing extinguishes murabaha debt at death instead of passing it to family (how it works), and documented life cover from Katilim Emeklilik's shelf replaces income the shares cannot. Both exist in committee-governed participation form; there is no reason to solve an Islamic estate problem with a conventional policy.

Step 9: Review on a trigger list (887.21 TL per amendment)

• Marriage, divorce, births, deaths in the heir set: the faraid arithmetic changed; re-ask Diyanet and amend the will.
• Property bought or sold, business started: the inventory and the third's composition changed.
• A child's circumstances shifted (faith, finances, geography): the TMK 676 consent map changed; adjust the family work and consider Step 7.
• Every few years regardless: reread the will, reconfirm the guardianship choice still fits, and check that sums and fractions still say what you mean. Amendment costs one third of the deed fee; staleness costs whatever the forgotten change costs.

The whole plan on one line

A free fatwa, a 3,000 TL will carrying the third and the guardianship, a one-page intent statement, a prepared family, gifts where consent is doubtful, insurance on the debts, and a review habit. No commercial service will assemble this for you in Turkey (we checked); a household that works the list top to bottom will have done it better than a product would have, and for less. Start at Step 1 this week; the estate planning hub and Islamic will overview are open.