Should the Vehicle Be Delivered to a Buyer Who Has Paid a Deposit?

Sales Guides
Author: Mustafa Odabaşı
Creation: 21 October 2026

A seller who hands the vehicle over to the buyer before the notary sale is completed may one day find themselves forced to give up both the vehicle and the deposit at the same time.

Share This Page

Leaving the vehicle with the buyer after taking a deposit is a handover carried out before the notarized sale takes place, and it carries serious legal risk for the seller; because under Turkish law a vehicle sale is only valid at a notary, and a deposit based on an invalid contract must generally be refunded even if the buyer backs out. In other words, when you hand over the vehicle in person, a situation may arise in which the seller has both given up the vehicle and may be forced to return the deposit. In this guide, I explain the legal nature of the deposit, the issuance of promissory notes and written documents, the seller's rights, and fraud scenarios, filtered through thirty years of field experience.

Key Highlights

When the sale of a registered vehicle is carried out outside a notary, it is invalid; the deposit is also affected by this invalidity.
In a sale that does not meet the notary requirement, the deposit is considered unjust enrichment and is refunded under all circumstances.
In practice, the common deposit rate is around 2%-5% of the vehicle's price.
A valid withdrawal penalty exists only if it is agreed in writing ; the burden of proof lies with the seller.
Refusing to return the deposit is not a crime by itself; however, if there was no intention to sell from the start, fraud may come into question.

What Does Deposit Mean Legally: A Binding Payment or a Withdrawal Penalty?

The Turkish Code of Obligations does not contain an independent type of payment called a "deposit." The money known among the public as a deposit legally corresponds to two different institutions. The first is the binding payment, namely the earnest money: Money given at the time of contracting is considered a binding payment unless otherwise agreed. In this case, the money is refunded even if the buyer backs out; the seller can only deduct the losses it can prove from this money. A 2019 decision of the Court of Cassation General Assembly of Civil Chambers confirms this framework.

The second is the withdrawal penalty, namely the regret money. For this institution to be valid, it must be agreed expressly in writing that it is a withdrawal penalty. If the party paying the withdrawal penalty backs out, they forfeit the money; if the receiving party, that is the seller, backs out, they return twice what they received. The critical point is the burden of proof: It falls to the seller to prove that the money paid was a withdrawal penalty, and if this proof cannot be provided, the money is considered a binding payment. As far as I have seen over the years, most sellers use the phrase "the deposit is burned" without knowing this distinction; yet the law does not so easily allow the withdrawal party's deposit to be burned.

Why Does the Notary Requirement Change the Deposit?

Noter onayı olmadan imzalanan bir araç satış vaadi sözleşmesi geçersizdir ve üzerine ödenen kapora hukuken dayanaksız kalır.

According to Article 20 of the Highway Traffic Law, all sales and transfers of registered vehicles are carried out at a notary; sales and transfers not carried out at a notary are invalid. This formal requirement covers not only the main sale but also preliminary contracts: According to the Code of Obligations, the validity of a preliminary contract depends on the form of the contract to be concluded in the future. Therefore, an ordinary vehicle sale promise contract written on paper and signed by both parties is invalid. A 2019 decision of the 19th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation clearly establishes this finding.

The concrete result of this for the seller is as follows: A down payment taken under an invalid contract constitutes unjust enrichment and must be refunded in any case. Even if you include a clause in the contract stating "the down payment will not be refunded," this provision is invalid; because penalty clauses and similar accessory provisions in an invalid contract are also invalid. The decisions of various chambers of the Court of Cassation and its General Assembly point in the same direction: An invalid contract imposes on the parties only the obligation to return what they received, and the withdrawal payment in an invalid contract is also subject to refund.

In the past, business between dealerships and individual sellers was concluded with a handshake, some money, and a single-sheet promissory note. Now Court of Cassation case law clearly demonstrates that this practice has no legal value. The widespread popularity of the "the down payment burned for whoever backed out" narrative in popular guides stems from the fact that few people know the effect of the notary formality requirement on the down payment; the popular narrative stumbles here on the legal reality.

How Much Should the Down Payment Be and How Should It Be Taken?

In practice, the purpose of the down payment is twofold: to secure the vehicle against being sold to someone else and to give the buyer time to raise the cash. The common rate is between 2% and 5% of the vehicle's price; for example, for a vehicle worth 200,000 TL, a band of 4,000-10,000 TL is discussed. Under a regulation concerning used vehicle sales, the advance payment sellers can take before the sale is completed is limited to a maximum of 10% of the sale price; those who want to reach the primary legislative text on this limit should directly check the current regulation.

Bank and written documentation instead of cash in hand

Cash down payments handed over in person always carry risk; in an unrecorded transfer there is no documentation. The safest way is to receive the payment by bank transfer or EFT and to draw up a written vehicle down payment agreement between the parties. Writing "vehicle down payment" in the transfer description carries evidential value later on. When a payment left without a contract needs to be proven, bank receipts, transfer descriptions, WhatsApp and SMS correspondence, witness statements, and audio and video recordings come into play. For thirty years I have been repeating a single rule: Put the words on paper and the money in the bank.

When drawing up promissory notes and written documents

The down payment with a promissory note practice is widespread, but on its own it is not a guarantee. Let me remind you: If the contract itself is caught by the notary requirement, the promissory note drawn up on it and the withdrawal payment records can also be deemed invalid as accessory provisions. In other words, the existence of the promissory note does not make an invalid sale valid. The arrangement that truly protects the seller is a sale promise agreement made at a notary and a secure payment mechanism administered by the notary.

Is the Vehicle Handed Over to the Buyer Who Takes the Down Payment? Risks and Practical Outcome

Let's get to the heart of the matter: You have received a deposit, and the buyer said "entrust the car to me, I will gather the money and come back." Handing over the vehicle in this way does not legally make the sale valid; the transfer of the vehicle is only completed once it is done at the notary. Releasing the car without a valid contract in place leaves you in a gap where you are simultaneously responsible for both losing the vehicle and refunding the money. If the buyer backs out and demands the deposit back, you will be obligated to return it if the notary condition was not met; and the car comes back to you having sat idle, having accumulated kilometers, and possibly having sustained damage.

Unfortunately, direct legal analysis of this issue is weak in the publicly available material; however, the conclusion drawn from the existing legal framework is clear: You cannot keep the deposit without a valid contract, and if the car is handed over, the burden of getting it back and the risk of dispute fall on you. In a case covered by Milliyet, it was claimed that a car was handed over after a 5,000 TL deposit and a promissory note were arranged; TRT Haber also reported a fraud attempt in which the car was given to the buyer on the pretext of matching the deposit, and then sold to someone else. These cases are concrete examples showing that handover does not guarantee the sale.

My opinion is clear: Hand over the car only on the day of the notary appointment, together with the transfer process. The deposit is compensation for the loss of other buyers while the car waits; it is not a trust placed before the ownership of the vehicle is transferred. If the waiting period will be extended, write the compensation for this into a contract, but take that contract to the notary.

Deposit Fraud: Scenarios Targeting the Seller

Fraud targets not only buyers, but sellers as well. In a scenario warned about by law enforcement authorities, individuals introducing themselves as notaries or notary staff ask for money under the name of a "deposit," "file fee," or so-called secure payment. Similarly, there are complaints in which a transfer of 10,000 TL to an IBAN was requested on the pretext of a fake notary deposit. The most important check here is this: The Union of Turkish Notaries has no money transfer system called a secure deposit or escrow deposit in legislation or notary systems; the genuine service of notaries is the Secure Payment system, in which vehicle sale prices are managed by the notary.

As for the criminal dimension: A deposit received through an internet listing can be evaluated within the scope of qualified fraud committed via information systems. For simple fraud, the penalty is imprisonment from 1 to 5 years; for qualified fraud via information systems, it is imprisonment from 3 to 10 years plus a judicial fine, and the competent court is the Heavy Penal Court. Among the elements of qualified fraud are the absence of an intention to sell from the start, fraudulent behavior, and becoming unreachable after receiving the deposit. That said, taking a deposit on a car listing and not selling is not always considered qualified fraud; what scope the act falls into is determined according to the specific case. Not refunding a deposit is not a crime in itself, it is a civil dispute; however, if there was no intention to sell from the start, criminal liability may arise.

Roadmap and Safe Alternatives When a Dispute Arises

What should you do if the buyer backs out and requests a refund of the deposit? First, gather all available evidence: the bank receipt, correspondence, witnesses. Then, the course of action is determined according to the nature of the dispute. For disputes qualifying as consumer transactions, the monetary limits for 2025 are as follows: district consumer arbitration committees handle disputes up to 66,000 TL, provincial consumer arbitration committees handle disputes between 66,000 TL and 104,000 TL, and disputes above that go to the consumer court. Applications to the arbitration committee are made via TÜBİS, e-Devlet, or the district governorship and governor's offices, with decision times in practice ranging from 3 to 8 months. In disputes that do not qualify as consumer transactions, the competent court is the civil court of general jurisdiction for other cases, the consumer court for consumer cases, and the civil commercial court for commercial cases.

Payment or contract form	Legal status	Outcome for the seller
Notarized sale or preliminary sale agreement	Valid	The deposit and terms are evaluated according to the agreement
Simple written agreement + deposit	Invalid	The deposit is refunded as unjust enrichment
Withdrawal penalty clause in an invalid agreement	Invalid	The refund risk persists even if the buyer backs out
Cash deposit given in person	Undocumented	Difficulty of proof works against the seller
Bank transfer + written deposit agreement	Has evidentiary value	The strongest document to hold in a dispute

There is also a clear safe alternative: the Turkish Union of Notaries' Secure Payment system enables the secure, notary-supervised transfer of vehicle sale proceeds. As an example, for a vehicle sale price of 500,000 TL, the 2024 usage fee was a reasonable amount of 194.31 TL. Paying this amount instead of taking a risk several thousand times the sale price is the choice that changes the geometry of this business.

Conclusion: The Seller's Safe Route Goes Through the Notary

When used correctly, a deposit is an elegant tool that saves the seller time; when used incorrectly, it becomes a source of disputes that can cost you both the car and the money. Let me summarize the formula: take the deposit within the 2-5% range of the vehicle price, via bank transfer and with a written document; never hand over the vehicle before the title transfer; if you want a withdrawal penalty clause to be valid, take the agreement to a notary; and remind anyone who asks you for money under the name of a "secure deposit" that no such service exists in notary systems. These four lines are the golden rule of years of litigation experience.