The local notary can pass the job on. Article 104 of the Turkish Notaries Law (Noterlik Kanunu) provides that where a translation cannot be made at a notary’s office in the place where the person concerned is, it may be made at a notary’s office elsewhere through the local office. The Regulation on the Notaries Law repeats the rule in its article 96 and adds that an intermediary fee is then collected as well. A foreign national holding a document in a less common language does not have to find the distant office alone; the request starts at the local counter.
Article 104: the local office as intermediary
Translation is one of the notary’s own duties: article 60 of the Notaries Law lists translating documents from one language into another among them. An office asked for a notarised Turkish translation of, say, a Georgian or a Tagalog document is therefore given a relay by the law rather than a reason to refuse. The office in the applicant’s place acts through a notary’s office in another place where the translation can be made. The wording is permissive, may be made; the article does not oblige a given office to relay, and it names no receiving office.
The oath card decides what the local office can do
Why an office may have nobody for a language follows from article 96 of the Regulation. Before a translator works for an office, the notary has to be satisfied beyond doubt that the person knows the language, and an oath record is drawn up; the records are kept on a card at that office, and the notary may not have a translation made by anyone whose record is not on its card. Each office’s card therefore covers the languages of the translators registered there and no others. A language missing from the card is the practical trigger for article 104. How a translator comes to be on a card is a separate subject, treated in the key terms section of this site.
An intermediary fee on top of the translation charge
The last sentence of article 96 says that in such a case an intermediary fee is collected from the person concerned in addition. The same article sets how the translation charge itself is counted: not by the pages of the source text but by the pages of the valuable paper on which the notary has the translation printed. Neither provision states an amount, and this site publishes none; the notary’s office quotes it. How long a relayed translation takes was not found in this site’s survey.
What the two provisions leave open
- Which office receives the relayed job, and whether the applicant may name it, is stated neither in article 104 nor in article 96.
- Whether the original document travels between the two offices, or a copy does, was not found in this site’s survey.
- Which of the two notaries signs the clause under the translation is not spelled out; the clause itself shows it, since article 103 of the Notaries Law has the notary’s clause state the translator’s identity and address and be dated, signed and sealed by the notary.
- How the finished translation comes back is set by the Union of Turkish Notaries (Türkiye Noterler Birliği) in its Consolidated Circular 23: a translation made at another office through article 104 is sent by post or by cargo, and since 29 May 2017 it may also be sent by registered electronic mail (KEP), with a note that it was received that way.
After the relay: using the translation abroad
A notarised translation made through a relay is still a notarial act. If it is to be used outside Türkiye, the apostille on it comes from the governor of any province or the district governor of any district under article 199 of the Notaries Law, as amended with effect from 30 November 2024, and it attests the signature and seal of the notary who certified the translation. For use before a Turkish authority, the holder asks that authority which certification it wants on the foreign-language document. A translation office renders the text; it does not choose the notary who certifies it and gives no opinion on how the receiving authority will treat it.