Licence and Credentials

What the licence means

In Türkiye, acting as an intermediary in the sale or lease of real estate requires an authorisation certificate (taşınmaz ticareti yetki belgesi) from the Ministry of Trade, under the Regulation on Real Estate Trade. The certificate is issued only to a business whose responsible person holds the official vocational qualification for real estate brokerage, and the Ministry can suspend or cancel it if the rules are broken. Anyone who brokers a sale or a lease without it acts unlawfully, and you have no regulated professional to hold to account.

Burak Ünal passed the official qualification in 2021 and holds authorisation certificate no. 3408704. He runs the business himself as a sole proprietorship under the registered trademark Bosphorus Brokers, so the licence, the business and the person you deal with are the same.

The rules we work under

• A written brokerage agreement before we act for you in a purchase, sale or letting, as the Regulation requires.
• A capped, disclosed fee: for a sale, at most 2% of the price plus VAT from each party, set out on our fees page and the same for Turkish and foreign clients. Where a developer pays us a commission on a new-build sale, we tell you.
• Listings with the owner's written authority, carrying our authorisation number.
• Customer identification in purchases and sales, because real estate brokers are obliged parties under the anti-money-laundering Law No. 5549.
• Personal data handled under Turkey's KVKK and, for European visitors, the GDPR, as our privacy notice explains.

How to verify us

• Ask for the certificate. We send a copy of authorisation certificate no. 3408704 to any client who asks, before any commitment.
• Check with the Ministry of Trade. The Ministry keeps the register of authorised real estate businesses in its Real Estate Trade Information System (TTBS).
• Check the trademark. Bosphorus Brokers is registered with TÜRKPATENT under no. 2022/169136 in class 36 (real estate services), searchable in its online trademark database.
• Read independent reviews on our Google Business Profile, linked from our reviews page.

What we are not

• Not a law firm. For legal advice or representation we recommend an independent Turkish lawyer and work alongside them.
• Not a bank, portfolio manager or licensed investment adviser. For the deposit, bond, fund and pension routes to citizenship, the product is offered by a licensed institution you choose.
• Never a holder of client money. Purchase prices, deposits and investment amounts go through banks to the seller, developer or institution, never through our accounts.

If something goes wrong

Write to Burak Ünal directly at contact@bosphorusbrokers.com; he answers complaints personally. Consumers can also apply to the consumer arbitration committee or consumer court of their place of residence under Law No. 6502, and complaints about a broker's conduct can be made to the Ministry of Trade.