“UNSPECIFIED CLAIM CASE” UNDER THE LIGHT OF THE RECENT AMENDMENTS IN THE CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE (“CCP”) 02 October 2020

The Law, which introduced comprehensive amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure ("HMK"), basically aimed to accelerate the judicial proceedings and to eliminate the vagueness’s in practice.

The amendments introduced, contain regulations that are very important in terms of procedural law, and within the scope of this newsletter, we are going to focus on the changes regarding to unspecified claim cases.

What is Unspecified Claim Case? In what circumstances it shall be filed?

Unspecified claim case is a kind of “action for performance” in which the demanded receivable cannot be determined exactly, the amount of receivable is not known, or not available to be known by the creditor while filing the lawsuit.  

With the concept of “unspecified claim case”  which is regulated with the Article 107 of the Code of Civil Procedure,  in cases where it cannot be expected or it is not possible to determine the amount or the value of the receivable precisely, the creditor,  is able to direct his/her case to the other party by specifying a minimum amount of the receivable. The main purpose of introducing this type of lawsuit into our law is to prevent the plaintiff from the foreclosure and the time limitation period in cases where the plaintiff cannot determine the amount or value of his/her receivable on the date of filing the lawsuit.

The receivable in the cases where “the amount or value of the receivable cannot be expected to be known or it is not possible to be known exactly and precisely, to determine the amount or value of the receivable exactly and precisely is going to be possible as a result of the information given by the other party or by the judicial proceeding can be defined as “unspecified””.(YİBBGK., E. 2016/6 K. 2017/5 T. 15.12.2017)

The uncertainty of the receivable in the unspecified claim case should be determined by examining it separately in terms of each concrete event. “Categorically, it cannot be mentioned that a certain type of lawsuit or lawsuits filed by certain persons are initially specified or unspecified claim lawsuit. The determination should be made by applying the criteria of the unspecified claim cases to each concrete event in terms of the receivables in each separate lawsuit” (YHGK E. 2016/22-1547, K. 2019/864, T. 4.7.2019)

What Are the Amendments Brought to the Code of Civil Procedure Law by Law No. 7251 Regarding the "Unspecified Claim Case"?

With the Law No. 7251, which entered into force after being published in the Official Gazette dated 28.07.2020 and numbered 31199, radical changes, including the name of the article, have been made in the Article 107 of the HMK where the unspecified claims and the partial claim cases were arranged.

Firstly, by adding the phrase "within a two-week definite period to be given by the judge before the end of the investigation" to the end of the regulation "when it is possible to determine the amount or value of the receivable as a result of the information given by the other party or the judicial proceeding" the plaintiff's request to increase the demand stated at the beginning of the case is made subject to a certain amount of time. As a matter of fact, the regulation has been amended from "(2) At the time of it is possible to determine the amount or value of the receivable exactly and precisely as a result of the information given by the other party or proceeding, the plaintiff may increase the request stated at the beginning of the case without being subject to the prohibition of extending the claim." to “(2) At the time of it is possible to determine the amount or value of the receivable exactly and precisely as a result of the information given by the other party or the proceeding the plaintiff may increase the request stated at the beginning of the case within the two weeks of time that is given  by the judge before the end of the proceeding without being subject to the prohibition of extending the claim.".

While a period has not been determined for increasing the demand of the plaintiff in the lawsuit filed as an unspecified claim before the amendment; as it can be seen, as a result of the amendment made in paragraph 2 of Article 107, the plaintiff is now be obliged to state the claim within the 2-week period of time which will be given by the judge when it is possible to determine the receivable exactly and precisely. If the request of the plaintiff is not specified within this certain period, the case will be judged over the amount specified in the lawsuit petition.