The message usually arrives on a weekday afternoon, and it is rarely from your tenant. It is from the agency: your new tenant cannot open the electricity account, because the DASK policy expired.
If you live in Rotterdam, Dubai or London, this is the kind of problem that is trivial in Istanbul and impossible from a distance. The policy is annual, it lapsed quietly at some point, and nobody was standing in the flat to notice. Meanwhile a tenant who signed a lease last week is sitting in an apartment with no power, and the relationship you were counting on for the next three years is starting badly.
DASK gets a passing mention in most guides about owning property in Turkey and almost never an explanation. This one covers it properly: whose duty it is, what it actually covers, where it blocks you, and what it does not do at all.
Whose duty it is: the owner's, not the tenant's
Compulsory Earthquake Insurance (Zorunlu Deprem Sigortası) is governed by the Disaster Insurance Law and issued on behalf of the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool, known by its Turkish acronym DASK. The obligation to hold a policy sits with the owner of the building — with you. Not with the tenant, and not with the building management.
The confusion comes from who ends up paying. A tenant who cannot open a utility account will often buy the policy themselves and then try to deduct it from the rent, which turns the first month of a tenancy into an argument about money. It is entirely avoidable: confirm the policy is valid before the tenant moves in, not on the day they try to switch on the lights.
Cover is defined by building, not by owner. Residential buildings on privately owned, title-registered land are within scope, along with the individual flats within them under the Condominium Law, and the offices or small commercial units located inside such buildings. Buildings used entirely for commercial or industrial purposes, public buildings, and structures with no title registration fall outside it. If what you own is a warehouse or a standalone shop, confirm the position before buying a policy rather than after.
What it covers, and the two exclusions that matter most
DASK insures the building, and only against earthquake.
| Covered | Not covered |
|---|---|
| Direct physical damage to the building from earthquake, and from fire, explosion, tsunami and landslide caused directly by an earthquake | Contents — furniture, appliances, everything inside |
| Foundations, main walls, walls separating flats, ceilings and floors | Non-earthquake risks: flood, theft, fire from another cause |
| Stairs, landings, corridors, roofs, chimneys | Loss of rent, loss of profit, alternative accommodation costs |
| Lifts, garden walls, retaining walls | Damage above the maximum sum insured |
Two of those exclusions decide how a landlord should think about the rest of their cover.
Contents are not covered. Not your tenant's furniture, and not the appliances you left in the flat. That is one more reason the inventory of what you supplied belongs in the lease itself — see what a Turkish rental agreement must include.
Loss of rent is not covered. An apartment that becomes uninhabitable after an earthquake stops producing rent, and DASK does not replace it. If the rent from one flat is a meaningful part of your income, that gap is worth pricing the way we price vacancy in the invisible cost of an empty apartment.
The maximum sum insured is a ceiling, not a valuation
DASK carries a maximum sum insured that is revised every year. Your cover is calculated from the building's square metreage and construction type up to that ceiling — and for a mid-sized Istanbul flat, the cost of rebuilding can sit well above it.
Because the ceiling and the premium tariff change annually, we do not quote figures here. Check the current maximum on DASK's own site and the sum written on your own policy, separately. The premium itself is calculated from the earthquake risk zone, the construction type (reinforced concrete, masonry, other) and the gross floor area — so two flats of different sizes in the same building do not pay the same premium.
If the building has been assessed as at-risk or has entered an urban-renewal process, none of the above is the whole picture; that situation has its own rules.
Where it will actually stop you
There are two moments when a valid policy is required, and both tend to catch owners off guard:
- Title deed transactions. A valid policy is required for sales and transfers. The owner who discovers this is the one trying to buy a policy in the land registry waiting room on completion day. The rest of what a sale costs is set out in selling your Istanbul property while you live abroad.
- Electricity and water subscriptions. New accounts and transfers require it. In a month like September, when most Istanbul tenancies turn over, this is the line item that determines whether your tenant moves in on schedule.
The practical conclusion for an owner abroad is a small one: put the policy renewal date in the same calendar as your letting dates. A lease that starts in September and a policy that expires in August is a problem you will hear about from four time zones away.
DASK is not home insurance
DASK is compulsory and narrow. Home insurance (konut sigortası) is optional and broad, and for a landlord the two do different jobs:
- DASK covers the building, against earthquake only, up to the ceiling.
- Home insurance typically covers water damage, flood, fire and theft; depending on the policy, loss of rent and alternative accommodation; and additional earthquake cover above the DASK ceiling.
For a let property, the sensible split is: the building and the earthquake risk on your policy, the tenant's belongings on theirs. Writing that one line into the lease removes the most exhausting argument there is after an incident. The general division of who pays for what is tabulated in aidat, repairs, deposit: who pays for what.
If you are not in the country to arrange any of this, it belongs to the same routine bundle as rent collection and meter readings — described in who watches your Istanbul apartment while you're away.
Can you deduct it from rental income?
Yes, but it depends on which method you use. If you declare rental income under the actual-expense method, insurance costs relating to the let property are among the deductible expenses, and the DASK premium falls into that category. If you have chosen the lump-sum deduction, you cannot deduct it separately — the flat-rate percentage already stands in for all expenses.
Which method suits which owner, and what documentation each requires, is covered in rental income tax in Turkey. Keep it distinct from property tax: the DASK premium is an insurance cost, property tax is a separate levy on a separate calendar.
A checklist for an owner who is not in Istanbul
- Is the policy currently valid? DASK is annual, and an expired policy pays nothing.
- Are the floor area and construction type on the policy correct? An understated area means an underpaid claim.
- Is the owner name current? If you bought recently, the policy may still be in the previous owner's name.
- Did you confirm the policy before the tenant's move-in date, rather than on it?
- Do you carry separate home insurance for contents and loss of rent, or are you holding that risk yourself?
- If you own several properties, do the policies renew on the same date? Scattered renewal dates are the single most common reason one gets forgotten.
If you own property in Istanbul and are not there to watch the calendar, this is one of the routine items we handle alongside rent collection, arrears and reporting — see property management, or start with a free valuation if you are still deciding what to do with the property at all.