How a service our clients asked for became the way we prefer to work, why it starts with the buyer’s brief instead of a broker’s stock list, and what happened when I flew out to check a project that had sent me two months of permits and site videos.

Executive Summary

Every report in this series so far has tested a project we were asked to bring to market. This one is different. It sets out how we work when the client sets the agenda: when someone hands us a budget and a brief and asks us to go and find the right asset, or sends us a project they’ve been shown elsewhere and asks whether it’s real.

The difference sounds small. It isn’t. A broker selling from stock is looking for a buyer who fits the property. A buyer’s advocate is looking for a property that fits the buyer, and has to be willing to come back with nothing. The Mandate Standard is the set of checks that keeps us on the right side of that line.

A Service Our Clients Built

We never set out to offer this. It started when clients who had already bought through us began forwarding projects they’d been shown by other brokers. They had the brochure and the projected returns. What they didn’t have was anyone they trusted to tell them whether any of it was true.

So I treated those projects exactly as I treat our own. I went to the site, checked the title and the permits, looked at what the developer had actually delivered before, and ran the numbers on our assumptions rather than the brochure’s. Some failed, and I said so. When one passed, I negotiated with the developer directly and had the contract amended in my client’s favour before they signed.

That turned out to be a better way of working, for the client and for us. Instead of hoping something on our list matched a buyer’s mandate, we were working from the mandate itself.

The Defining Risk: Buying From Someone Who Has to Sell

Most overseas property is sold, not bought. A buyer responds to a listing, and the broker’s job from that moment is to place them in something the broker can sell. Often the same buyer is talking to several brokers at once, each with a different list, each with every reason to say yes.

Nobody in that chain is necessarily dishonest. But nobody in it is working from the buyer’s brief either. The questions that matter most — does this property do what I need it to do, is it priced fairly for the risk I’m taking, and does it exist in the form I’ve been shown — are left for the buyer to answer alone, usually from thousands of miles away.

On site visits I see the same few patterns again and again. I sort every project I’m shown into one of five types:

Type	What it looks like	What catches it
The Ghost	Doesn’t exist. Convincing documents, borrowed or staged site footage.	Standing on the site
The Fantasy	Real land, good intentions, not enough funding to finish.	Testing how the build is paid for
The Orphan	Built well, but nobody to run it after handover, so no income.	Asking who operates it, and checking the contract
Full Price	Every box ticked, sold at the value of a finished, earning property.	Comparing the price with completed stock
The One	Real, funded, professionally run, and priced with equity built in.	All five checks below

The Mandate Standard — Our Due Diligence Framework

When we’re acting for a buyer, a property only reaches them if it passes five checks:

1. The brief comes first, in writing. Budget, what the property is for, how long it will be held, how involved the owner wants to be, and what would rule a property out. We source to that document. If nothing fits it, the answer is no, not a near miss dressed up as a match.
2. Independent of who introduced it. A project from another broker, a developer we’ve never met or one of our own partners gets exactly the same checks: title and permits, land use, the developer’s delivered projects, and how the build is funded.
3. Seen with our own eyes. Documents can be produced and videos can be borrowed. We don’t treat either as proof that a project exists or is progressing. Every property we put forward has been visited in person.
4. Equity priced in on day one. Buying off-plan means backing a project early, carrying the construction risk and going without income until handover. The price has to reflect that against finished, earning equivalents, and returns are stress-tested at worst-case occupancy on our assumptions, never the developer’s projection.
5. Terms agreed before you sign. Price, the payment schedule and the contract itself are negotiated before commitment, with staged payments tied to verified construction progress where the market allows it. The final contract is then reviewed by the buyer’s own independent lawyer.

It sits alongside the market frameworks in this series: the Turnkey Standard in Batumi, the Operator Standard in Zanzibar, the 30-Year Standard in Thailand and the Clean Title Standard in North Cyprus. Those deal with the risk that defines a market. This one deals with the risk that defines how a property is bought.

Field Notes: Two Months of Paperwork, One Plot of Land

I’m writing this from Indonesia, partway through a run of site visits. One of them was a development I’d been talking to for more than two months. Over that time the developer had sent permits, construction videos showing work under way, and regular updates on how well the first phase had sold.

When I arrived, the site was a plot of land fenced off with barbed wire. There were a few goats and some tobacco plants. There was no construction.

I’ve seen the same thing before, in Zanzibar. On paper, both projects would have passed most of the checks a buyer can run from home. Neither would have passed check three. I won’t name the developer; the point isn’t one bad actor. The point is that the only check a buyer can’t do from a laptop is the one that caught it.

The More Common Problem: Real Projects at Full Price

Ghost projects make the headlines, but they’re rare. Far more common on this trip were legitimate projects, with real land, real builders and real permits, asking full market value for something that won’t exist for two years.

That fails check four. Buying off-plan is how we find value, but only when the buyer is rewarded for backing a project early. If the price already matches a finished property, the buyer takes on construction risk and loses two years of income for nothing. In that case, an established property earning money today is the better buy, and we’ll say so, even when it means recommending something completed.

What Negotiation Covers

Once a project passes, the work changes from checking to negotiating. Depending on the market and the developer, that can include:

• Price — set against finished equivalents, not the developer’s next price release.
• Payment schedule — staged against construction milestones rather than dates, where possible.
• Specification — what is delivered at handover, written into the contract rather than shown in a render.
• Delivery terms — completion dates, and what happens if they slip.
• The operating agreement — fees, revenue share and owner-use rights, read before signing, not after handover.

We are not lawyers, and we don’t act as one. Every contract we negotiate is reviewed by the buyer’s own independent lawyer, never the developer’s, before anything is signed.

Who Bespoke Acquisition Suits

• Private investors and families with a clear purpose and a budget from around $1 million who want someone working for them, not for a seller.
• Family offices and investment groups looking for single assets, portfolios, or resort and hotel acquisitions, handled confidentially.
• Trophy-home buyers after something exceptional that may never be publicly listed.
• Buyers who have already found something and want an independent check before they send a deposit.

It doesn’t suit someone looking for the cheapest entry point in a market. For smaller budgets, the projects that have already passed our due diligence are published in the Due Diligence Library.

How We’re Paid

How we are paid is agreed and disclosed in writing before any work begins. Where we validate or source a project a client goes on to buy, our fee is usually negotiated with the developer or seller, and we tell the client so. Where a mandate needs a dedicated search or third-party reports, any fee is agreed with the client upfront. If a project fails our checks, we walk away from it, and from the fee with it.

Risk Disclosure and Next Steps

Due diligence reduces risk; it doesn’t remove it. Construction can be delayed, markets move, currencies shift against your home currency, and emerging-market property can take time to sell. Before committing to any purchase:

• Put your brief in writing, including what would rule a property out.
• Insist on a site visit, by you or by someone working for you, before any deposit.
• Compare the off-plan price with finished, earning property nearby.
• Instruct an independent local lawyer, not the developer’s, to review title and the contract.
• Read the operating agreement before you sign, not after handover.

To start, see our bespoke property acquisition service and share your brief, or send us a project you’d like checked.

This article describes our due diligence and acquisition process for general information. It is not financial, legal or tax advice, and it does not constitute a recommendation to buy any specific property. Every investment carries risk, and prospective buyers should seek independent professional advice before making any investment decision.