What kind of assistance can the consulate offer to its British expats?
We have limits on what we can do in any country. Ultimately people come and decide to live in Turkey; they know they have to use the Turkish procedures and practices. I do appreciate that bureaucracy in any country can be frustrating. It can be particularly frustrating if maybe you don’t speak the language very well. The advice that we give to people is to prepare themselves very well, to research carefully. The consulate can provide a list of English-speaking legal advisers for example, and there are a number of publications in this region as a whole trying to help British citizens understand the procedures that they’re going to have to deal with. Most people tend to go to consulates to ask for help because they have been wronged. Could the consulate work with the Turkish government in order to be more proactive and prevent some of the unpleasant experiences from happening? The thing that we find most effective is to put out information to people before they make the decision to come
