You can buy an apartment with a tax number. You cannot switch on the electricity with one.

Buying and living are different documents

To buy: a Turkish tax number. Obtainable quickly, no residence status required. This is all the purchase itself needs.

To live in it: a kimlik — the foreigner identity number issued with a residence permit. Utilities, a bank account, and most day-to-day administration ask for it.

Nobody explains this, because the firms writing about Turkish property are selling the transaction, and the transaction closes at the land registry.

What actually needs a kimlik

• Electricity, water and gas in your own name

• A Turkish bank account, in most cases

• Internet and mobile contracts

• Enrolling children in school

• Most municipal and administrative dealings

What you can do without one

• Complete the purchase and hold the title deed

• Own the property indefinitely

• Rent it out and receive rental income

• Sell it

Which is the honest answer to the underlying question: not having a kimlik does not put your ownership at risk. It makes living in the property inconvenient. Those are very different problems, and the worry is usually about the first when the reality is the second.

The sequence that works

1. Tax number

2. Purchase and title deed

3. Residence permit application, if you want one

4. Kimlik, issued with the permit

5. Utilities and banking

Step 3 is where the 200,000 dollar threshold applies.

One practical note: address registration procedures have been tightening. Some provinces have moved to appointment-only address registration with a documented list of required paperwork depending on whether you own the property, rent it, or are moving into someone else's address. Budget time for this step rather than assuming it happens at a counter the same afternoon.

If you are not going to live there

Many owners never take a residence permit. The property is let, an agent or management company holds the operational relationship, and utilities sit with the tenant. This is the normal arrangement for an investment holding, and it is what PERGAS's asset management service exists to handle.