If You Received an Enforcement Notice on a Cheque or Promissory Note: Bill-of-Exchange Enforcement and the 5-Day Deadline

If an enforcement proceeding has been started against you on a cheque or promissory note under the "special attachment procedure for bills of exchange" (kambiyo senetlerine özgü haciz yolu), the payment order you receive works differently from an ordinary enforcement notice. The deadlines are very short: for most complaints and objections you have only five days. This article summarises, under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law No. 2004 (EBL), what you can do after receiving the payment order.

1. What is the special attachment procedure for bills of exchange?

A creditor whose claim rests on a cheque, bill of exchange or promissory note may, under EBL Art. 167, use a faster procedure available only for these instruments and proceed by attachment. The creditor must attach the original instrument and a certified copy for each debtor to the enforcement request.

In this procedure objections are filed with the enforcement court, not the enforcement office, and unlike an objection in ordinary attachment proceedings, an objection does not automatically stop the proceeding. For the general rules on objecting to enforcement, see objecting to enforcement proceedings in Yalova.

2. Which deadlines appear in the payment order?

If the enforcement officer finds that the instrument is a bill of exchange and has fallen due, a payment order is promptly sent to the debtor together with a copy of the instrument (EBL Art. 168). The main deadlines are:

Subject	Deadline	Where
Payment of the debt and enforcement costs	10 days	Enforcement office's bank account
Complaint that the instrument is not a bill of exchange / the creditor has no right to proceed	5 days	Enforcement court
Objection that the signature is not the debtor's	5 days	Enforcement court (by petition)
Objection that nothing is owed, the debt was paid, a grace period was granted, the claim is time-barred, or the office lacks jurisdiction	5 days	Enforcement court (by petition, with reasons)
Asset declaration (if no objection / if the objection is rejected)	10 days / 3 days	Enforcement office

Note that the deadlines run from service of the payment order. Missing them may forfeit your right to object, so it helps to note the day and time you received the notice.

3. Types of complaint and objection

a) Complaint under bill-of-exchange law (EBL Art. 168/3 and 170/a)

If the document is not a bill of exchange (for example, an instrument missing mandatory elements) or the creditor has no right to proceed under bill-of-exchange law (for example, is not the lawful holder or did not have the instrument protested where required), the debtor may complain to the enforcement court within five days of service. The Court of Cassation's General Assembly of Civil Chambers has held that the enforcement officer must examine these two points of their own motion, and that the enforcement court may also consider them of its own motion where another complaint or objection was filed in time (Court of Cassation HGK, E. 2017/746, K. 2021/1101, 28.09.2021).

However, this ex officio review does not apply if an objection to the signature has been withdrawn or the debt has been admitted in whole or in part (EBL Art. 170/a, last paragraph).

b) Objection to the signature (EBL Art. 168/4 and 170)

If the signature on the instrument is not yours, you must notify the enforcement court by petition within five days. Otherwise the signature is deemed yours. If the court finds the objection serious, it may temporarily stop the proceeding until it rules. If the signature proves to be the debtor's, an unfounded objection may lead to denial compensation and a fine, so a signature objection should rest on a genuine ground.

The 12th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation has noted that EBL Art. 170 is a special provision for forgery claims based on denying the signature, that the enforcement court cannot treat a forgery action in a general court as a preliminary issue, but may temporarily stop the proceeding until its ruling on the merits of the objection (E. 2025/10000, K. 2026/2016, 30.03.2026).

c) Objection to the debt (EBL Art. 168/5, 169 and 169/a)

You may state to the enforcement court, by petition and with reasons within five days, that you do not owe the debt, that it has been paid, that a grace period has been granted, that the claim is time-barred or that the enforcement office lacks jurisdiction. This objection does not stop enforcement actions other than the sale.

The enforcement court summons the parties to a hearing within thirty days at the latest. For the objection to be accepted on grounds of non-existence or payment of the debt, this must be proven by an official document or a document whose signature has been acknowledged. If accepted, the proceeding stops; the creditor keeps the right to sue in a general court. Where bad faith or gross fault is found, compensation may also arise under the conditions stated in the law.

4. What if you missed the deadline?

• Complaints outside the special five-day periods may be filed with the enforcement court within seven days of learning of the act (EBL Art. 16).
• To claim that you do not owe the debt after enforcement has begun, an action for a negative declaration may be filed; however, in such an action filed after enforcement has started, the proceeding cannot be stopped by an injunction, and you may only ask, against security, that money held at the enforcement office not be paid out to the creditor (EBL Art. 72).
• If you have paid, you may be entitled to claim a refund through an action for restitution (EBL Art. 72).

5. A short note for creditors

When properly conducted, enforcement on a bill of exchange is a fast route; but the original instrument and certified copies must be attached, the instrument must meet the formal requirements, be due, and the creditor must have the right to proceed. A defect may lead to cancellation of the proceeding on complaint or of the court's own motion.

6. What should you do?

• Note the date of service of the payment order and calculate the five-day period immediately.
• Gather the instrument (or copy), payment records and correspondence.
• Decide which objection fits (signature, debt, jurisdiction, bill-of-exchange status); several objections may be submitted in one petition with reasons.
• Because the deadlines are so short, legal support in the first days matters. To assess which route fits your file, you can create an appointment or reach us via the contact page.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Every file is different, and missing deadlines may cause loss of rights.