Selling to NRI buyers: what should a developer have ready before the first call?

Why this buyer is worth preparing for

An NRI buyer is usually deciding between your project and an asset in the country they live in. They will do more diligence than a local buyer, ask harder questions, and take longer — and once they commit, they are less likely to walk away over a market wobble, because they were never buying for a two-year exit. What they will not tolerate is uncertainty about process. A sales team that cannot answer a documentation question loses them at the exact moment they were ready.

The nine-item pack

1. Your RERA registration, verifiable

The registration number and a direct link to the project’s Karnataka RERA page — not a number in a brochure. An overseas buyer cannot walk to your site office, so the regulator’s own record is the primary trust document. It is also the first place a careful buyer checks your revised completion dates, so know what it says about you before they read it.

2. Approvals, as a list with dates

Sanctioned plan, commencement certificate, khata and conversion status, and the current position on occupancy certificate where relevant. A buyer who cannot inspect relies entirely on documents. Send the list unprompted; the buyer who has to ask twice begins discounting everything else you say.

3. The permitted payment channels, stated explicitly

Under FEMA, an NRI must fund an Indian property purchase through banking channels: NRE, NRO or FCNR(B) accounts, or an inward remittance from abroad. Cash, foreign currency and traveller’s cheques are not permitted, at any amount.

Say which of these you accept, give the account details in writing, and state that payments must match the agreement value. Two things follow from this that most sales teams do not know: which account the buyer pays from affects how easily they can take the money out later — NRE-funded purchases repatriate more freely than NRO-funded ones. A buyer who learns this after paying will not blame their own adviser. The account choice sets the exit.

4. A PoA template, and the attestation route

This is the single most common failure point. A power of attorney that is only notarised in the buyer’s country of residence is not valid for property registration in India. The route is: notarised locally, then apostilled (in Hague Convention countries) or attested by the Indian Embassy or Consulate, then the original sent to India and adjudicated — stamped — at the sub-registrar.

Have a specific-purpose template your legal team already accepts, tell the buyer the sequence and the realistic timeline, and start it early. A booking that waits on a PoA is a booking sitting in limbo for weeks. The buyer-side detail is here — and a narrow, specific-purpose PoA protects them, which is worth saying out loud.

Nobody loses an NRI sale on price in the third month. They lose it on a document that should have been started in the first week.

5. A written position on TDS — including where sources disagree

Section 194-IA requires a transferee to deduct 1% on consideration of ₹50 lakh or more when buying immovable property from a resident. The statutory language is “any person, being a transferee” paying a resident transferor, which on its face includes an NRI buyer purchasing from a resident developer.

We will be straight about this: published guidance is not consistent on the point. Some widely-read sources state that an NRI buying from a resident developer need not deduct. Others apply 194-IA regardless of the buyer’s residential status, which reads correctly against the section. This is exactly the kind of ambiguity that stalls a booking for a month, and numbering under the Income Tax Act 2025 is in transition on top of it. Get a written position from your auditor, keep it current, and hand it to the buyer rather than debating it on a call.

6. PAN, early

A PAN is required for registration and for the tax compliance that follows. A buyer who starts the PAN application at agreement stage has added weeks to your closing. Ask about it on the first call.

7. What an NRI cannot buy

Agricultural land, plantation property and farmhouses are outside what an NRI may purchase, though they may be inherited. If any part of your inventory touches this — a plotted development on converted land, for instance — know the position before the conversation, not during it.

8. Handover and possession for someone who is not in the country

Who does the snagging inspection. How defects are recorded and closed. How keys are handed over, to whom, and under what authority. What happens if the buyer cannot travel for possession. Most developers have no written answer, and an NRI buyer will ask.

9. What happens after handover

Will the property be let, and by whom? Who holds the keys, pays the maintenance, deals with the association, and handles a leak in the second monsoon? A developer who can point to a credible answer — their own service or a named partner — removes the objection that most often ends an overseas purchase conversation: who looks after it when I am not there.

The four things that actually kill NRI bookings

• A PoA rejected at registration because it was notarised abroad but never attested or adjudicated. Weeks lost, and the buyer’s confidence with them.
• Payment through a channel FEMA does not permit. A FEMA breach is the buyer’s problem legally and yours commercially, because it becomes a stalled transaction and a story they tell.
• No PAN. Discovered late, and it holds up registration.
• An unanswered tax question. On TDS, on rental taxation, on what happens when they sell. You do not need to be their tax adviser. You need to not be the reason they stopped.

The operational point nobody writes down

Time zones. A buyer in California asking a question at 9pm their time gets your reply, at best, the following evening — roughly a day and a half later. They are usually asking two developers the same question. Whoever answers first is the one still in the conversation. Whether that is a scheduled overseas calling window, a WhatsApp channel someone actually watches, or a documentation pack complete enough that the question does not arise, decide it before you start marketing overseas rather than after.

Still deciding, or want this applied to your own situation?

Tell us where you are and we will come back to you. The first conversation is free, and we will tell you plainly if we are not the right people for it.

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