A letter from the consumer arbitration committee: what a hotel does next

A consumer arbitration committee (tüketici hakem heyeti) is a Ministry of Trade body that decides consumer disputes below a yearly money limit. A hotel that receives an application must send its documents within the period the committee sets, at most thirty days from service, and may object to the consumer court within two weeks of the decision.

The envelope is thin, and it names a guest who checked out weeks ago. Nothing in it tells the hotel what to do first, and the first thing that matters is the date it was served. This article walks the process from the hotel's side: reading the letter, building the file, writing the reply, settling, and objecting if the decision goes against you. By the end you will know which dates to write on the top sheet today.

What is a consumer arbitration committee, and when does a hotel hear from one?#

It is a Ministry of Trade dispute body that decides consumer cases below a yearly money limit. For applications made in 2026 that limit is 186,000 Turkish lira, and below it the consumer must apply to a committee before going anywhere else, according to the Ministry of Trade communiqué published in the Official Gazette on 23 December 2025 (No. 33116) (opens in a new tab).

Law No. 6502 on Consumer Protection (Articles 66, 68 and 70) provides for consumer arbitration committees, and the Ministry of Trade sets them up. The money limit is reset every year by a Ministry communiqué, so a dispute filed in a different year sits under a different limit. Below the limit, applying to a committee is mandatory; at or above it, a committee cannot take the case.

The consumer applies where they live or where the transaction took place, and in a district with no committee, to the district governorship. The application is made in person or through a lawyer, by hand, by post, or online through e-Devlet via the Consumer Information System (Tüketici Bilgi Sistemi). For the hotel this means the first sign of a dispute may be the committee's letter, not an email from the guest.

The letter has arrived: what is it actually saying?#

It is a request for information and documents, and the date it was served, not the date printed on it, starts the hotel's clock.

Identify four things before anything else: the committee and file number, the consumer, the hotel legal entity named, and the amount claimed. The amount claimed also tells you whether the committee had power to take the case at all under the current yearly limit. If the entity named is not the one that operated the hotel on the dates in question, that is a point for your lawyer, not a reason to ignore the letter.

Find the service date. Under Article 13 of the Consumer Arbitration Committees Regulation (Official Gazette 21 September 2022, No. 31960) (opens in a new tab), the hotel gets at most thirty days from service to submit documents, extendable on request if the chair agrees. Note how it was served: requests go electronically through the system set up under Article 107/A of the Tax Procedure Law; where that is not possible, Notification Law No. 7201 Article 7/a applies first, then registered letter. Someone must check the electronic notification inbox daily, not weekly.

Read what is actually asked: which documents, for which dates, and whether the committee has already set a hearing or an expert examination (Article 19 allows both). If the application itself is missing details or is inconsistent, the chair gives the applicant seven days in writing to complete it (Article 11). That is the applicant's window, not the hotel's, and it does not extend the hotel's own deadline. A committee letter is usually the end of a complaint chain that began elsewhere, in the guest's own correspondence with the hotel and in the channels a guest uses after checkout.

Which documents should a hotel put in the file?#

The ones that show what was promised, what was delivered and what was charged, in that order, each with a date.

What was promised: the reservation confirmation, the room type, the board basis, the rate and any special offer the guest accepted. What was delivered: the registration record, the arrival and departure times, the room number, and any room move with its reason. What was charged: the guest bill (misafir hesabı, folyo) showing every charge, every void and reversal, and the closing balance.

What was said: emails, messages, guest app requests, and the note the front desk wrote when the complaint was made in person. What was done: the incident report, if one exists, with who saw what, who was told and what the hotel offered. A dated photograph with a room number is worth more than an unnamed gallery. Staff statements written in the same week, signed and dated, while the shift is still memorable, carry more weight than ones written after the letter arrives. The structure of a good incident report matters here; see hotel incident reports: what to record after an accident, a theft or a dispute.

Send only what the claim needs. An identity copy or an unrelated medical note is personal data the committee did not ask for.

How should the reply be written?#

As a chronology with numbered attachments: what was booked, what happened, what was charged, and what the hotel did about it.

Open with one page of facts in date order, each line carrying a time and the number of the document that proves it. Answer each head of the claim separately. If part of it is true, say so in one plain sentence and move on; a partial admission costs less than a defence that collapses.

Separate the three questions the committee will ask: was the service as promised, was the charge correct, and was anything done to put it right. Do not write about the guest's character, motive or tone; the committee reads a file, not an argument. Close with a numbered list of attachments that matches the references in the text, so the rapporteur can follow it without hunting.

Sign with name, title and the authority to represent the hotel, keep a copy, and send it through the same channel the committee used, keeping the submission receipt. Where the dispute turns on whether the stay matched what was sold, take advice before you file; that is the point where a lawyer changes the outcome, and it is the core of defective service under consumer law in Türkiye: when a guest says the stay was not as promised.

Can a hotel settle before the committee decides?#

Yes, and a settlement recorded on paper with the consumer's written withdrawal usually ends the file more cheaply than a decision.

Decide the number first: a refund, a credit, a future stay, or nothing. Write the reasoning down before anyone calls the guest. Put the agreement in writing: what the hotel pays or provides, by when, and that it settles this dispute in full. Pay by bank transfer with a description and keep the receipt; cash without a record is not a settlement, it is a story.

Ask for the withdrawal in writing through the same channel the application came through. A phone call is not a withdrawal, and the committee will keep the file open without one. Send the settlement and the withdrawal to the committee with a short cover note quoting the file number. Do not make payment conditional on the guest staying silent about the facts; it reads badly in the file and may not hold. If the amount is near the yearly limit, check the current limit before assuming the committee had power in the first place. A settlement is also the natural end of a recovery that began at the desk; see hotel guest complaints at the front desk: a recovery routine.

What happens after the decision, and how does a hotel object?#

The decision binds both parties and is enforced like a court judgment; either side may object to the consumer court within two weeks of service, and the objection does not stop enforcement unless the judge orders it.

Under Law No. 6502, Article 70 (opens in a new tab), decisions are served on the parties the same way the requests were, within fifteen working days of the decision date (Regulation, Article 23), and enforced under the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law's rules on judgments (Article 24). The objection goes to the consumer court where the committee sits or where the consumer lives, within two weeks of service. Because the objection does not suspend enforcement, ask the judge in writing for suspension as an interim measure at the same time you object.

Where the decision is right on the merits but the law was misapplied, the court may amend or correct it and uphold it on the papers, so a purely technical objection can still end in the same result. The court's decision on the objection is final. On costs: if a decision in the consumer's favour is overturned, attorney's fees on the proportional scale of the minimum fee tariff are awarded against the consumer. But if it is overturned because information or a document that existed and was not given to the committee is produced in court, no costs or fees are awarded against the consumer. A thin file is expensive twice.

The committee decides within six months at the latest, extendable by at most three, and a party may ask for urgent examination if the chair agrees (Article 21).

Fixing the cause: one line in the monthly review#

Every committee file is a complaint that was not resolved at the desk, so the useful output is a change in how the hotel sells or checks in, not a better defence letter next time.

Log each file with three fields only: the claim in one line, the root cause, the change made. Review the log monthly with the front office and housekeeping leads; one line per case is enough to see a pattern. Feed recurring causes into the room description on the sales side and into the check-in script, not into a longer template for replies. Keep the closed file for the period your accountant and lawyer advise; a related claim can arrive later. The same records answer a complaint site post, an Alo 176 call and a tour operator claim, which is why the file is worth building properly once.

What to do next#

Write the service date and the thirty-day deadline on the top of the file today, and build the document set in the same week, while the shift still remembers the stay. Everything else in this article follows from that one habit. The letter is a records problem before it is a legal one, and the hotel that can produce a clean chronology and a numbered file rarely needs the argument. Confirm your own dates, amounts and case with your accountant or legal adviser before you act on any of it.