Choosing a Developer

A track record is verified on foot, not on a website. Visit two completed sites of different ages, and look at the things owners live with: how the buildings have weathered, whether the pools and gardens are maintained, how the site management actually functions. Then knock on doors, because owners on completed phases are the most candid due diligence source in the market, and most are happy to talk.

Ask each developer the same short list: how many projects delivered, how late was the latest, what happened with the snag lists, and may we speak to three previous buyers of their choosing plus two of ours. Confident developers answer all five easily. Evasion on any of them, particularly the last, is data of the most useful kind.

The shape of a payment schedule tells you how a project is financed. Stage payments tied to construction milestones such as foundations, structure, roof and finishing mean your money follows the building and can be verified on site before each transfer. Heavy front loading suggests your deposits are financing the construction itself, which makes the developer’s solvency your problem in a way no discount compensates for.

A sound schedule keeps the payment on contract proportionate and spreads the balance across construction linked stages, sometimes with a final portion at key handover. Interest free payment terms across the build are common and genuinely useful. Whatever the schedule, every payment goes by bank transfer to the account named in the registered contract. No exceptions, no cash, no side letters.

The end of construction is where developer quality shows plainest. A proper handover includes a formal snagging inspection with a written, room by room defect list, a defined correction period before final payment, and a defects liability period of at least twelve months in the contract for problems that emerge in the first seasons. A long first snag list of small items is normal; the test is how it is closed out.

Then comes the longest phase of all: the developer as your site manager. Ask what the annual maintenance fee is on completed phases, how it has moved over recent years, and whether owners consider the service worth it, because you are choosing not just a builder but, often, a decades long service relationship. The best developers here understand that; the rest reveal themselves within a year of handover.