Buying land in Indo

Lease only, yep indo partner required [who will eventually shaft you out of ownership]
Some horror stories out there......
Indo dreaming will know the ins and outs.

Groundswell, who often visits these forums, asked the question a few months ago. Not sure if he followed through with it or not.

I had a good look GF, its got me stumped, as I remember reading about it...?
There ya go my Mull Memory :)
Probably having a man look with moobs as Zen san would say:)

I can remember the story as all his mates just used him..?
Sean&Morris said some classics as well, which made sense, whats happened to that fella, we used to live under the bridge for a while,but only his smelly ol sleeping bag and undies are left here.....? ;)

You do need a sponsor/partner GF.
You'll never trust me why should you we've never met.
But I could set you up with a contact who could do it for you, be that nominee, (not for free he would do it for money) if you find you really want to do it & don't have another option. Long story short I have a friend (my daughters godfather) who's brother has been living in Bali & developing property for 30 years, and his business partner was offered to me for the same reason. You need someone you can trust, and I've been promised this guy can be trusted.
Again, I don't expect a response from you about this as it's quite a big risk for you, and I understand as I have been baulking at the idea myself due to the risk factor, and they're my friends. Just thought it better to give you the option really.

I did quite a bit of research into this a while back because the Indo govt. will grant long visas to foreigners over a certain age to encourage them to retire there. We were thinking this sounded alright, you now, Darwin is only a cheap flight away.
I'm no authority on this, but here's what I know.
A foreigner can not own land in Indo...full stop. There is no way around it, it's in their constitution.
You need a local to be your "partner" to put the property in their name, hence the "trust" part.
There are all kinds of people involved now in the big land grab, Ozzy real estate agents have set up shop over there. They will tell you they have iron clad contracts made up by the best lawyers etc. etc.
There are professional partners who do it for a fee that can be trusted blah blah.
All bullshit. You can not get around the constitution and it has been tested in court.
If you trust someone, fair enough but money changes people, especially poor people.
On the trust thing, I work with a Balinese guy who has been living here for a few years married to an Ozzy girl. He has been building a house back in Bali in his home village, sending money back to his next door neighbour (people he grew up with) to pay for it...and got ripped off by him. When I spoke to him about this owning land issue with a partner he said if he got ripped off by his own neighbour from his own village, a guy he thought he could trust, don't even think about it.

The other alternative, which is legally safe is a long lease (99 or 200 years can't remember right now) but it only applies to certain types of dwellings i.e. not houses, but villa type places. The lease is apparently transferrable to your kids or whoever if you cark it, and you can sell it on to someone else too before the lease expires too.
Like I said, I stand to be corrected on any of that. Plenty shows up on google.

@goofyfoot, your local contact that put the idea into your head wouldn't happen to be Indonesian would he.

Yep chin is right its a big risk as your nominee will own your land and there is zero you can do about if they turn. Leasing is a good way to go, I believe there are 25 year leases also, which cost less.
I looked into my account section on here but didn't find much, but there is a personal message facility somewhere..

I was this close to buying my dream patch in Indo ( width of a pube ) , but no matter how hard i dreamt, the reality kept getting uglier and uglier. I'm sure it works for some, just not myself.
Good luck Goofyfoot.

The Philippines is cheap & you can retire there also...

Or is your Indo contact looking for their next victim.

Oh ok. So I've never met my guy. But I trust the people who say he is good with my daughters life, so that's all I can say. I was offered to contact him, meet him in Bali, & if he liked me he may go nominee. He's a lawyer. If you can send me a personal message I can give u my email to chat more

Google . Bali land rip off.
Recommended read -My property bali .com laws and scams.

Horror story of a close mate...marries a Bali girl, sets up home in Oz, also buys land and builds house in Bali (in the good wife's name of course). Eventually relationship turns bad after a couple of kids, she gets 60% the Oz property and a stack of hard cash (600k AUD in total), and locks him out of the indo property, what ever that was worth.
He's now a pauper, the ex and family are now living like kings and queens for the rest of their days.

Plenty of those horror stories around, buy ,build or invest in indo.......90% chance you will get shafted
In Aust......cover your arse.....pre nup NO.......BFA binding financial agreement YES
A mate in Aust almost lost the lot in a relationship breakup $600k of property [all his] and his super......somehow he survived, and a year or two later his new partner wishes to move in ...BFA suggested her response ...no way will I sign that ! fucked her off real quick.....the writing was on the wall.
nothing wrong with protecting what s yours.

Absolutely disgusting TGF, those stories make me cringe, I hear about them all the time especially with many an older bloke who have been working offshore for years. They are usually late 50-60's and most have worked in that industry for 30 or years, on good money. Have been through 3 marriages, their ex's have stripped them of everything, making them start all over again but falling into the same trap...?
Then I see them on the computer checking out online dating sites trying to buy young good looking 20-30 year olds.....?
Classic stuff eh.

Yeah, this mate, although not in 'old' stakes was kind of a drifter, worked the mining game but was always a bit of a lost soul. Could never keep an Aussie girl too long. Met this gorgeous indo girl, successful in her own right in the fashion game. Bam, old mate is smitten and the game is set...I didn't trust her from the moment I met her but how do you tell that, and more so convince a bloke like ol' mate that the writing is on the wall for failure.

When I was living in Denmark, WA there were quite a few of these stories of the older surfer bloke shacking up with asian brides, cause living in remote country towns having a lack of available women, let alone women that want an old crusty dude. In the end they loose the lot through desperation for love and companionship.

Some had even gone for round two or three.

Yeah,find a woman that never really likes you then give her a house. They are all spunks when you first meet them.

Ahhh, another episode of dumb and dumber

Ask yourself why you want the land and be realistic about what you will do with it.

I've leased land in a pretty empty and isolated part of Java - waves aren't worth the effort to get there, but I liked the place. $2000 for 25 years. That was about seven years ago and I only manage to get there for about three weeks each year. The family still lives in the house on the land, still farms it, but are always pretty stoked to see me and shift out when I turn up. It's not what I had planned, but at the time 2K wasn't much money to me (now it is!). I was wrong and convinced that money would last forever and that I could handle living in a Javanese village by myself.

I've seen spots go from quiet to crowded thanks to blokes who get sucked into the whole 'living in Indo, surf all day' thing. They lease some land or a buy with a partner, build their dream house, realise that there is more to life than surf and that they are now broke, so they start to try and drag their mates over for a few bucks, that turns into opening up a website, get more people in, one of the guests buys more land etc. etc. etc. and then in five years time you have a fully functional surf ghetto with all the good and bad that it brings. Not for me thanks.

These days, when I head over for surf, I go to one of my spots and rent a house for a few months. No contract needed - might move in with a family if I must, but prefer to get a house to myself. I'll usually have someone come over and cook etc... It's teh done thing, and a single bloke by himself doing his own cooking etc. is too much of a topic for conversation.

That said, if you want to go over purely for epic surf and nothing else then do what the seasoned veterans do - post up in Bali in the cheapest place you can find, surf the reefs while you wait for the swells, and then do hit and run missions to the best spots when the swells hit.

Nicely said Dandandan

Dandandandnadnan, what you say makes good sense, but most of these boofheads aren't going to buy your advise. They're going to buy land in indo cause that's way more cooler.

Hey Goofyfoot - I didn't read the initial post (breaking some sort of rules there I am sure!). Didn't mean to imply you were out to do anything other than live a good life. That's why all of us head over to Indo. I don't think any Australian surfers running places in Indo ever intended to make money or screw anyone over - they are just like us, hypnotized by the waves.

I'm based in Tassie, so I certainly see the need to escape. Although the next week looks pretty unreal for you if you are in the Bells region! My advice would be to find an area you like, somewhere with waves but also with something else to keep you occupied for when the waves die. I'm lucky in that I am an academic who does research in Indonesia, so on flat days/bad tides/bad winds etc I still have plenty going on. Once you have that place, I think the long-term cost of renting someone place for a few months when you turn up versus leasing it outright for a number of years is roughly the same. A year of rent in the village I stay in works out to be very cheap, and I have none of the issues that you would face if your name was on a contract. It also gives you that sense of freedom, that you can head off anywhere and anytime and not worry about theft, fire etc. etc.

I've got no negative views on it - just realistic. I have seen some very well-meaning and culturally literate people get caught up in their vision of paradise and never took a step back to question what they were doing. The desire to build the beautiful simple house along the beach took over from the surf, they found they were spending much more money and gaining much more worries and not spending all day in the water or with their families, which is what it was all about in the first place. I've spent a good ten years or so all over Indonesia and have seen it happen in just about every surf-town and to very many good people. The happiest long-time veterans I know these days are the ones who still have the complete freedom to pack up and head off to an outer island, without the worry of houses, contracts or belongings to weight them down. Even the ones that stay put, marry a local, have kids, and for all intents and purposes 'become Indonesian' struggle with the responsibility of property law and contracts in Indonesia.

Never let any of that stop you though - look at all those guys and girls living the dream in the Ments. if they had listened to my hyper-realistic advice they'd probably be surfing 2 foot Maroubra in the middle of winter.

Ohh gosh goofy you got me all wrong, Iknow, Iknow sarcasm is the lowest form of humour but I cant help myself, just listen to dandan and do the math, all the money you invested in that house in indo could be invested and the interest could pay for rent on a place and you would still have the capital for an emergency or young goofys uni fees. whatever you do keep on going to indo, cause we all know it's the best place in the world to go.

Morris is a separate person to myself goofy, he lives in gippsland and i live somewhere else.

Fuck why in gods name would you be working today 10m@16sec look at the nepean buoy boy, I'm off for a second surf with my other 50 new mates.

Hey goofy or foot or whoever you call yourself, why would you want to buy land in a country where so far you have had no interaction with the local people. I ask this cause it is obvious that you have not made any Indonesian friends as you need to be introduced to one for the deal to go through.

Please don't associate me with Shaun, see southy he knows who he is.

Goofy , you headin to Woodside to mix it up with Morri tomoz . I heard they had good banks .....

Don't listen to Shaun , he's just upset he and his Posse in Portland had to be evacuated yesterday .

Cyclonic Winds..........
Classic.
Don't give away too much..

Here's a scenario (which may or may not be happening as we speak)...buy lease at dusty hell spot; build place big enough for 'guests' as well as yourself; then wait for big property players angling to move in and build monstrosities, & sell your lease to these characters for big bucks.

Like has been said despite what some Bali real estate websites may you want you to believe there is no getting around the fact that foreigners can not own property in Indonesia (apart from i believe units in some high rises, think skyscrapers)

There is only two options, to either put the property in an Indonesians name, which obviously is of high risk no matter how well or good you know them and if things go sour or they decide they don't want you to be a part of it all, well the laws on there side just because you payed for it means nothing.

Normal property purchased in this way has Hak Milik title, this is the standard title for most residential land.

The other method and much safer is a long term lease in Indonesia called Hak Sewa, normally 25 years but possible longer.

It is also technically possible to do both, for example: your Indo long term girlfriend and you go half's in a property, you purchase it in her name and take a lease out on it in yours.

BTW. I used the example of girlfriend because if a foreigner marrys an Indonesian and they don't get a pre nup drawn up saying any Indonesian property is only owned by the Indonesian, then technically they both own 50/50 all assets including property, which is not possible and if this scenario or similar happens such as an inheritance where the Indonesian is married to a foreigner without a prenup outlining the property thing, then they have technically one year by law to get rid of it.

Although that said many mixed foreigners/indonesian couples have purchased property together and have had no problems, but IMO its best to play by the rules where possible in Indo as things can and do change laws cracked down on suddenly for no reason etc, also most good notaris will not process a property without seeing a prenup if they know the Indonesian is married to a foreigner.

Other things to consider or know check when buying land is.

1. To ensure the people who say they own it or hold the certificate really are the owners and its there name on the certificate.

2. To physically measure the land size to ensure it is what it says it is on the certificate, very important if buying property on a per metre price.

3. That you understand the title type, not all land can be built on and has different uses just like Australia, although this can normally be changed if needed.

4. Not all land in Indonesia has officially been certified, measured and registered with BPN (lands title office), and is still under Adat (traditional title) for example pretty much all the land in offshore sumatra is like this, basically it means its less secure. (although it does means you pay no yearly land tax/rates, although it is generally only a few dollars a year anyway on a standard size property)

5. All property dealings need to be processed through a notaris (like a property conveyer) never ever just hand over cash for property, certificate without a notaris present.

There is more good info here http://www.expat.or.id/info/ownershiprights.html

And lots of no BS info in the law area of the forum if you do a search.

As usual, indo dreaming nails it.

Number one is a key point. I've seen many long-time Indonesianists vow never to return after getting caught up in property dramas where they have bought property with their partner, only for two or three parties to turn up a few years later and claim, rightfully in some cases, that the land is theirs. A good friend of mine just lost his house of twenty odd years to someone who turned up with paperwork to prove the land was hers. A big messy drama. Try to avoid it.

Very nice property for sale overlooking Padang Padang

Yours for only $ 7,500,000 US dollars..........and they have a Russian buyer interested.