Buying Off-Plan in Bali: What to Check Before the First Payment

Off-plan is how most of the best-priced villas in Bali are sold, and for good reason: the developer gets funding, and the buyer gets a price that will not be available once the house is standing. It is also where the island's most painful stories come from — half-built projects, developers who dissolved, buildings that never received approval.

The difference between the two outcomes is almost never the render. It is a short list of things you can check before you transfer anything.

Check the land before you check the design

• Whose name is on the certificate, and what kind of certificate it is. Ask to see it. A developer selling land they do not yet control is selling an option, not a villa.
• Whether it is encumbered — mortgaged, pledged or under a dispute. Your notary can check this, and should.
• What the zoning permits on that exact parcel, and whether the building approval for this specific design has actually been issued. “In process” is a status, not a permission.
• The lease term and what happens at the end, if the structure is leasehold. Extension terms should be written into the deed now, not promised verbally for later.

Check who is building it

Ask who the contractor is, and whether they are the developer's own company or a third party. Ask what else they have completed, and go and look at it. A developer who does not build, using a contractor selected on price, has the weakest possible incentive to defend quality you cannot yet see. Ask what guarantee comes with the finished house, who honours it, and whether that entity will still exist in five years.

Check how your money is protected

• Payments tied to construction milestones — foundation, structure, roof, finishes, handover — verified by photograph or inspection, never by date alone.
• A final payment at handover, large enough to matter. If you have paid ninety-five per cent before you hold the keys, you have no leverage over the snagging list.
• A written completion date with consequences for missing it.
• A specification schedule attached to the contract, naming materials and brands. Without it, “premium finishes” is a marketing phrase with no contractual meaning.
• What happens if the project stops. Read this clause before any other. If it does not exist, that is the finding.

Check the numbers you are being sold

Off-plan is usually sold with a projected yield. Ask what occupancy it assumes, at what nightly rate, and whether management fees, operating costs, Indonesian income tax and the regional accommodation levy have been deducted. A projection at ninety per cent occupancy is not a projection; it is an advertisement. Ask what the same villa returns at fifty-five per cent, and watch how readily the answer comes.

The short version

• See the certificate. See the permit. See a site.
• Know who is physically building it and what they have built before.
• Pay against progress, hold something back for handover, and get the specification in writing.
• Make them show you the yield model, not the yield.

We develop and build our own projects, so the company that sells you the villa is the company that pours the concrete and the company that honours the guarantee afterwards. When you ask us for a rental model we will send you the workings, including the downside case. That is the standard worth holding any Bali developer to — us included.