Agreement for progression to the next higher degree in immovable pledge

The topic of our study is the progression agreement regulated between Articles 870 and 872 of the Turkish Civil Code No. 4721. With the establishment of a progression agreement, when one of the degrees in the upper rank is vacated, the immovable pledge in the lower rank is given the opportunity to progress to the vacated upper rank. In our law, when more than one immovable pledge is established on immovable property, the fixed degrees system is applied in order to determine the order of immovable pledges. In the system of fixed degrees, the order of the degree in which the pledge of the immovable is located is fixed and when the higher degree becomes vacant, the lower degree cannot advance automatically. However, in some cases, where there is no automatic progression, justice cannot be achieved between the parties and unfairness arises in concrete cases. The legislator has introduced an exception to the system of fixed degrees by enabling the execution of a contract for progression to the next higher degree and wanted to eliminate the negative aspects of the system. In our study, the agreement to advance to the next higher degree and the realization of the progression to the next higher degree are analyzed within the scope of the opinions in the doctrine and the decisions of the Court of Cassation. In the first part of our study, the immovable pledge and its types will be discussed, and the systems applied for determining the order of immovable pledges in the event that there is more than one immovable pledge on the immovable and the exceptions of these systems will be explained. In the second part, the definition, content, form, legal nature, parties, capacity status and annotation of the contract of progression to the next higher degree will be addressed. In the third part of our study, information on the rights and obligations of the parties, the realization of the progression to the next higher degree and the immovable pledges established in foreign currency will be provided. Keywords: Immovable Pledge, System of Fixed Degrees, Contract for Progression to a Higher Degree, Realization of Progression to a Higher Degree