Since October 2023, the fines imposed by the Ministry of Trade on those who have exorbitantly increased the advertisement prices in the real estate sector have reached a total of 88,900,000 TL.
The Ministry of Trade continues its activities within the scope of the Regulation on Real Estate Trade in order to establish a fair, competitive and stable market structure in the real estate sector, to ensure quality service delivery in the sector and to prevent consumer victimization.
In the statement, it was said as follows:
“In this context, in order to prevent deceptive advertisements that may take place on the advertisement platforms, to prevent speculative price increases caused by these advertisements and to prevent advertisement pollution, the relevant Regulation has been amended;
– Verifying the identity information of the advertiser,
– Verifying that the immovable property subject to the advertisement belongs to the advertiser or his/her first and second degree blood relatives or spouse, or that the advertiser is authorized by the owner of the immovable property subject to the advertisement.
Accordingly, in the first phase, the identity verification of real or legal persons wishing to advertise immovable property was started to be carried out through the Electronic Advertisement Verification System (EIDS) established within the Ministry with the integration of advertisement platforms.
The second stage, authorization verification, is also planned to be carried out through EİDS. Technical work on system developments and integrations regarding the EİDS Authorization Verification application is ongoing, and with the implementation of the application, only real estate businesses with authorization certificates will be able to be authorized, and advertisements will not be entered by businesses without authorization certificates.
In addition, in line with the goal of preventing unregistered activities and unfair competition, our Ministry of Trade teams continue to carry out intensive inspections in the real estate sector.
As a result of these inspections, a total of 29,221,612 TL administrative fines have been imposed on real estate businesses engaged in real estate trade without an authorization certificate.
On the other hand, all situations that may occur against our citizens in the real estate sector are closely monitored by our Ministry of Trade and measures are taken very quickly. In this context, housing advertisements on advertisement platforms are monitored and controlled, manipulative price increases that disrupt the market balance are fought and administrative sanctions are imposed.
Within this framework, administrative fines of TRY 73,700,000 were imposed on 737 real estate agencies in October and December 2023 and TRY 4,500,000 on 45 real estate agencies in January 2024, and a total of TRY 78,200,000 administrative fines were imposed on 782 real estate agencies that disrupted the market and free competition and caused consumer victimization by making exorbitant increases in housing advertisement prices.
This time, as a result of the examinations and evaluations made within the same framework, it was decided to impose an administrative fine of 10,700,000 TL in June 2024 on 107 businesses that were found to have exorbitantly increased the advertisement prices.
Thus, the total amount of administrative fines imposed by the Ministry of Trade on those who have exorbitantly increased the advertisement prices since October 2023 has reached 88,900,000 TL.
In order to ensure the fair, competitive and stable functioning of the market and to prevent the negativities caused by manipulative price increases in the market, the Ministry will continue its inspections in the real estate sector in the coming days.”
