For Russians in Turkey, they decided to toughen the rules for renting and renting real estate

Russians, both renting their housing in Turkey and renting it, will be required to register and pay tax – this was officially announced by the Turkish authorities, having analyzed the “reasons for the disastrous season.”

After talking with all interested parties, we learned the background of such a step, as well as what it threatens our compatriots, whose trip to the Turkish coast is yet to come.

The need to “bring the foreign private sector out of the shadows” during a discussion of the state of the Turkish tourism industry was stated by the Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Ersoy, immediately adding that the main owners of housing in the resort areas of Turkey today are Russians. According to the National Statistical Institute, it was the citizens of the Russian Federation who over the past couple of years have been actively buying up real estate in Turkish resorts and are now renting it out to their compatriots, depriving local hoteliers of earnings, and the state treasury of taxes. Russian tourists traveling to the Turkish coast not to a hotel, but to housing rented by Russian owners, were also not ignored by the Turkish Ministry of Tourism: the minister called such guests “cunning” and promised them “a tax from every day of their stay in the private sector owned by a foreigner “. The law on the taxation of foreign landlords and their tenants will be ready by the end of the year, and already now, foreign owners of Turkish property, renting it out, must register with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

“We want to stop the illegal business when tourists stay in houses that are bought by the same tourists,” the minister assured Turkish hoteliers. – The identification of such guests will be mandatory, and everyone will pay taxes to the treasury: the owners – from income, and tourists – for living in their apartments.

Mr. Ersoy was also supported by the Konakli Association of Tour Operators, its chairman demanded to get rid of unregistered rentals: “Illegal rental of houses by foreigners, in particular Russians, creates great inconvenience for the entire tourism market and damages the Turkish accommodation sector,” he said.

“The Russians have taken over the entire province of Antalya,” lamented Adnan, a hotelier from Kemer. – They bought the property, sort of, for themselves, but they themselves rent it out to resort guests from their own. And not even for a long time, but daily. That is, they steal our client. According to official statistics, 20% of tourists go to the private sector, but in reality much more. This is visible directly to the naked eye. Hotels are half empty and resorts are full. Where do all these people live?! And they also offer us to cancel the all inclusive system (the proposal came from the Confederation of Turkish Traders and Craftsmen, who is sure that “all inclusive” deprives Turkish small businesses of income. — Auth.). But we are also deprived of earnings! By the way, merchants and restaurateurs are also left without customers by yours. Look how many Russian cafes and shops we have now! Grow like mushrooms! And they lure their own. And we, it turns out, are just a platform for them, where Russians do business on Russians. And the latest cases overflowed the cup of patience.

According to the hotelier, recently – that is, at the very height of the season – several large “five-star” all-inclusive hotels on the coast at once experienced similar emergencies: tourists who were not guests of these hotels were caught actively consuming “included” services. But at the same time, they were wearing plastic bracelets issued to guests of this particular hotel. In most cases, these were our compatriots: some were caught eating up for future use at the buffet, others drinking cocktails by the pool. And when finding out where they got the hotel bracelets from, our citizens admitted that the owner of the accommodation they rent, also a Russian, supplies their guests with them. And since he himself is currently at home, the Turkish investigation has reached a dead end.

And what did they do with these violators? – I’m interested at the reception of the “injured” hotel in Kemer.

“But what can you do to them?.. The bracelets were confiscated, they were escorted out – and that’s all,” the Russian woman, who works there, shrugs her shoulders. “They didn’t even take money for food and drink. Only the reputation of guests from the Russian Federation is tarnished.

This is already felt in the tone of ordinary residents of the resort mahallesi (“quarters” – Turkish.), who until recently even rejoiced at the “European environment” represented by immigrants from the Russian Federation and their children, who now play in the same sandbox with little Turks.

“Our Russian neighbors moved in when our area was not yet closed to foreigners,” says Dilber, 35, a mother of three who lives with her family in one of the most expensive and prestigious residential complexes near Antalya. – At first we were delighted, because their children are almost the same age as ours. We thought that they would play together, ours would learn Russian, theirs would learn Turkish. And the family at first seemed decent to me and my husband. We immediately bought a whole floor, for cash, immediately went to the nearest neighbors from above and below with gifts from Russia – to get to know each other. Over tea, they said that they were forced to leave their homeland, as they “have geopolitical differences with it.” They said that they would do redevelopment “for themselves” on their floor.

According to the Turkish neighbor, the repair really boiled rapidly, so she did not see new neighbors for some time.

“And then I look,” Dilber continues, “a blonde with a child comes out of their floor, but it seems to be different. I said hello, but she does not answer. I ask her in English where Inna, the owner of the apartment, is, and she shakes her head that she does not understand. And then other neighbors said that they were tourists. Inna and her husband, it turns out, made a mini-hotel out of their floor! They said that they love space, they will make large halls “for themselves”, but they made 10 small rooms and rent them out. Since then, we have new neighbors every week, and the children in the yard have new playmates.

Dilber shares that after her 7-year-old son ran home in tears and with a black eye, saying that he had a fight with a Russian boy, she found the number that the new neighbor left and called her. The owner of a 10-room apartment, Inna, ended up in Russia and calmly said that “there was nothing to do in your Antalya, but in Moscow she and her husband have good positions and salaries, and their children have a free school and kindergarten.” At that time, the Turkish neighbors of the Russian “cunning” decided that they could not find justice for them. But after Minister Ersoy’s statement about the registration of such figures and taxes for them, they hope that this will become unprofitable for the Russians and they themselves will save their neighbors from the “passage courtyard of their guests.”

“Our citizens, if they rent out their housing, pay taxes,” Dilber’s neighbors say offendedly. – And yours are not, although they are on our territory. Tax them fairly! And also to ban the rent for a short time, we live here with families, we have children, and they settle random people!

— What will you do? – I ask the same question to compatriots, both renting their real estate in Turkish resorts, and renting it from their own, so as not to “go broke” on the hotel.

“Oh, how we rented, and we will rent,” the Russian owner of Turkish housing responds. With our experience! We are like Kolobok: he left his grandfather, and his grandmother, and even more so from the Turks.

“Even if our owners suddenly decide that it is no longer profitable for them to rent, we will move on to their Russian neighbors, they also rent,” says a Moscow couple who have been staying in Antalya for the second summer in the apartment of their friends from Russia. Have you ever been to Antalya? This is a Russian city.