What is Heirship Fraud (Collusion of the Deceased)?

What is Asset Stripping from Inheritance (Deceptive Inheritance Practice)?

Collusion (muvazaa) is a situation where the purpose of transactions made between individuals differs from their actual intentions. To give an example, it occurs when a person's objective in a legal relationship with a third party is not the same as what they actually intend to do. Recently, individuals have been transferring their assets to others to prevent attachment proceedings, showing these transactions as sales in the land registry. The primary purpose here is not to sell assets to third parties, but rather to "lend" the assets to another person to prevent liens from being placed on them. This situation is called an absolutely collusive transaction.

Relative collusion, on the other hand, is when a transaction is carried out by mutual decision between parties, but is presented as a different type of transaction to conceal the actual one. For example, if a person wants to donate their property to a third party but presents the donation as a sale in order to prevent other heirs from objecting, this is called a relatively collusive transaction.

The issue most frequently encountered in inheritance law is collusive transactions made by the testator (the deceased). The legal transactions that the testator makes to conceal their intent are generally of a relatively collusive nature. The testator’s true intention is to strip assets from their heirs. Legal transactions carried out by the testator with the aim of stripping assets are called relatively collusive transactions. In practice, what we see most often is the testator wanting to donate real estate to a third party to prevent an heir from exercising their rights arising from inheritance law, but presenting this donation as a sale in the land registry, performed in due form, due to the possibility that the heir might exercise their right to object in the future. Collusive transactions made by the testator for the purpose of stripping assets from their heirs are called Muris Muvazaası (Deceptive Inheritance Practice).

The purpose intended in deceptive inheritance practice is to prevent heirs from recovering their inheritance shares by filing a reduction action (tenkis davası). The testator presents the donation they actually intend to make as a sale in the land registry to strip assets. The testator aims to prevent their heirs with reserved portions from filing a reduction action.

However, there are certain conditions for deceptive inheritance practice. Namely;

For deceptive inheritance practice to be accepted, there must first be an apparent transaction. The transaction that is not intended to be made but must be performed to hide the intent is called the invisible transaction.

Another point is that a collusion agreement must have been made between the parties. When the parties reach an agreement among themselves regarding why the collusive transaction is being made, this is called a collusion agreement.

The third point is that the testator must be acting with the intent to strip assets from their heirs.

The final point is that there must be a secret contract made between the parties that reflects the actual intent and is concealed from everyone.

Deceptive inheritance practice is carried out with third parties. There is no limitation in the law on this matter, and the testator can enter into collusive transactions with whomever they wish, provided they act in bad faith.