Conversion of legal transactions noncompliant with the form requirement

The principle of freedom of form, which is regulated as a reflection of the autonomy of will and freedom of contract, is the freedom to perform a legal transaction without being bound by a form requirement. This freedom granted by the law is also limited by the law. According to this limitation, some legal transactions must comply with the formal rules in order to be valid. However, absolute adherence to the formal rules damages the principle of autonomy of will. In this respect, it is accepted that some legal transactions, which are invalid due to non-compliance with the form requirement, can be kept alive by converting them into another transaction. This method is called conversion. In our study, the institution of conversion, which is not regulated by a general norm in Turkish/Swiss law and which is becoming less and less common in judicial decisions, is examined within the framework of formally invalid legal transactions. In this context, firstly, the requirement of form and violation of form in legal transactions are explained. Then, the conversion instution is examined in detail and finally, it is enriched with examples from practice.