The Regulation on Shopping Malls ("Regulation") was amended by the Regulation on Amending the Regulation on Shopping Malls, which was published in the official gazette on December 30, 2016 ("Amendment Regulation"). Amendment Regulation has introduced a significant change on distribution of common expenses and brought new requirements with respect to security measures to be implemented by the shopping malls.
As per the Amendment Regulation which came into effect on December 30, 2016, the annex named "Procedures and Principles of the Calculation of Common Expense Participation Shares" of the Regulation that listed the procedures, principles and coefficients that will be used while calculating the common expenses to be paid by the retailers, shall no longer be applicable. According to the new system introduced by the Amendment Regulation, the retailers at the shopping mall and the management of the shopping mall shall unanimously determine the distribution procedure of the common expenses that are repetitive in certain periods such as electricity, water, heating, maintenance and repair work that do not have the characteristics of renovation, security and cleaning and which are not related to the rights in rem in the shopping mall and such procedure shall be valid for a period of maximum five years. If the parties cannot unanimously reach an agreement on the procedure, common expenses shall be shared based on the ratio of a retailer's sales area to the shopping mall's sales area.
Same as the Regulation, the Amendment Regulation stipulates that in order to request participation share for the common benefit oriented services such as marketing and management; such shall be laid down in the lease agreement between the parties. However, as per the recent amendments, unless otherwise is stated in the lease agreement, the participation procedure of the retailers to these expenses shall also be the same as that of the common expenses.
Furthermore, according to the Amendment Regulation, shopping malls are required to install license plate recognition systems to the entrances and exits of controlled areas such as open and closed parking lots and instantly share the data received from this system with the police. In addition, if the Ministry of Internal Affairs deems necessary, shopping malls are required to install under vehicle screening systems.
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