How Much of an Off-Plan Bali Villa Is Paid Before Handover?

A payment schedule is only useful once you know which version the seller intends to put in the agreement. Puri Sidem illustrates the problem particularly well. Its Ubud investment page and two-bedroom villa page ask for 70% at the transaction, 20% within three months and 10% within six months. Yet the developer's investor Q&A dated 2 October 2026 describes a 30% down payment within 30 days of the reservation agreement, followed by instalments linked to the foundation, roof enclosure, interior fit-out and final handover. That post gives no percentages for those later milestones. There is no sound way to combine these into one Puri Sidem schedule or to decide from the website which one applies to a particular unit.

Over in Pererenan, near Canggu, O'HANA's Solaya advertises a much shorter sequence. Its reservation deposit is 40% of the villa price, another 30% is payable during construction, and 30% is due on completion. The project calls these construction milestones, but the middle event has no published acceptance test. Nor does the final description expressly say that the buyer has inspected and accepted the property before completion money becomes due.

Two other developer schedules make the contrasts visible, although neither is a Canggu or Ubud development. Senang Developments' Nobia DUA and AJA Developments' Villa Jūra are both in Uluwatu. Senang uses stated construction-progress thresholds of 65% and 80%. AJA has triggers at 25%, 50% and 75%, and its website says that payments are held through a notary escrow arrangement pending verification.

The figures were checked on 19 October 2026 against available developer pages and indexed copies, including the Puri Q&A and Senang schedule where direct retrieval failed. None of these pages is the executed payment annex for a buyer's selected villa. A headline percentage may establish what a developer is asking for, but it does not establish that an engineer has signed off work, that a notary is holding the funds, or that a buyer can recover an instalment after a delay.

One way to compare unlike schedules is to track the share of the contract price due cumulatively after each payment. A 30% instalment following a 40% deposit takes the buyer to 70%, not 30%. On Solaya's advertised terms, the progression is therefore 40%, 70%, then 100% at the event the developer calls completion. Whether that last event includes a joint inspection, the delivery of keys or neither cannot be established from the wording on the public page.

Puri Sidem offers a concrete cash example rather than percentages alone. Its two-bedroom listing shows a USD 510,000 asking price and divides it into USD 357,000 up front, USD 102,000 in the next instalment and USD 51,000 in the last. If the 70/20/10 version governs the sale, the cumulative obligations are USD 357,000, USD 459,000 and USD 510,000. These are the amounts in one advertised villa-type offer as reviewed on 19 October 2026, not evidence of the price or transfers agreed by an actual purchaser. The three- and six-month conditions depend on a transaction date that is not known for the reader.

For Nobia DUA, the amount called for moves from 10% to 60% when the main contract is signed, then to 80% at the stated 65% construction point, 95% at the stated 80% stage, and 100% at handover. When the site says 20% at 65% progress, 20% is the part of the price being paid; 65% describes the developer's claimed construction threshold.

Villa Jūra's steps are smaller but more numerous. A 2% deposit precedes 33% at the principal agreement, followed by 22.5% when 25% progress is claimed, 20% at 50% progress, another 20% at 75%, and 2.5% at handover. The running totals are 2%, 35%, 57.5%, 77.5%, 97.5% and 100%. That leaves only 2.5% scheduled for the named handover event.

Cash exposure has at least three distinct ledgers. First is the amount the buyer is contractually required to transfer and the amount the buyer has actually sent. Second is the amount proven to be in third-party custody, if such an account is part of the transaction. Third is the amount actually released from that custody to the construction company. AJA says its post-signing instalments enter notary escrow and become releasable when milestones are certified. Without account terms, a named custodian and evidence of deposits and releases, a reader cannot fill in either custody or release amounts. Unknown is not zero.

The arithmetic for an individual offer is straightforward if all amounts use the same currency. Multiply the agreed price by the cumulative percentage divided by 100; subtract amounts already transferred against that price to see what would be needed to reach the threshold, never reporting a negative next payment. Subtract the cumulative figure from the contract price for the remaining scheduled balance. On the USD 510,000 Puri illustration, a 90% cumulative threshold gives USD 459,000; with USD 357,000 already sent, the incremental sum is USD 102,000 and the remaining price is USD 51,000.

Deposit treatment can change the answer even when the percentage calculation is correct. The advertised instalments for Solaya, Senang and AJA each total 100%, including their stated opening amounts. Adding those reservation payments again would count the same money twice. A separate booking fee outside the agreed purchase price would need its own line, supported by the actual reservation conditions.

Progress photographs are useful as observations, but they are weak evidence of a payment becoming legally due without a defined test. Suppose an annex calls for the foundation, load-bearing columns and pool shell to be complete. A photograph of freshly poured concrete tells the buyer little about the remaining work, the agreed technical specification or whether an authorised person has accepted the stage. A persuasive payment record links three documents: the schedule and its definition of completion, a dated record showing that the listed work was performed, and the contractual instruction governing invoicing or release of held funds.

Solaya's middle instalment is where a seemingly simple payment plan becomes difficult to administer. “During construction” could refer to the date a contractor asks for money, a particular stage, or a pre-agreed point in the works. Calling that instalment a foundation payment would invent a condition from another developer's practice. The agreement should identify an observable result and who can confirm it.

Nobia DUA illustrates a different measurement problem. The payment percentages are clear, while the advertised 65% and 80% build thresholds are not accompanied by a disclosed measuring method. Does “65%” refer to money spent from a budget, quantities of work completed, one villa, or an entire project? A progress report can identify the villa, date, works, drawings and deviations from specification; an independent professional's inspection can add another level of evidence if the buyer and seller have agreed to use one. The existence of any mandatory independent certifier for every Bali villa has not been established and should not be assumed.

AJA says the Villa Jūra arrangement includes monthly photos and reports, milestone certification and a notary-held account from which payments are released only as the relevant stages are verified. That is a meaningful description of what the developer proposes, but not the underlying escrow deed. The public text does not identify the exact custodian, their authority to judge or accept a certificate, the conditions for a refund, or how a disagreement over progress freezes or redirects a release. Certification by a party chosen by the developer is not automatically the same thing as an inspection arranged independently for the buyer.

Calendar instalments call for different evidence. Puri Sidem's principal sales pages say 20% within three months and 10% within six months; they do not name a foundation or roof inspection as a condition for those two instalments. The October investor article uses construction language but provides no complete percentage breakdown. A delay in the roof work therefore cannot be assumed to postpone the calendar-based payment under the other version. An alternative 30/30/30/10 plan described by commercial operator DOMA explicitly refers to acceptance records for foundation and structure; that is an example of one seller's model, not a Bali-wide statutory schedule.

Indonesian building documents operate on another level. Government materials under PP No. 16 of 2021 describe Persetujuan Bangunan Gedung (PBG), the approval framework for construction and building changes, and Sertifikat Laik Fungsi (SLF), which concerns whether a building is fit for its intended use under applicable procedures. The presence, timing and relevance of those documents need to be checked for the specific address and transaction. Neither a PBG nor an SLF is automatically an engineer's certificate for a private instalment.

A villa can reach a construction milestone without reaching a contractual handover. The building may have its main structure and finishes, yet the agreed appliances are missing, water penetration remains unresolved, or the final inspection has produced a list of defects. Occupancy-related documents and the right to use the property for the intended purpose raise further questions. Assuming that they happen on the same day is a poor substitute for written sequencing.

Consider Solaya's final 30%, due on “completion of the villa” according to the project FAQ. The words could be defined precisely in a signed contract, but the online schedule does not publish that definition. It would be inaccurate to label the final 30% an amount safely retained until a signed handover. Senang's Nobia DUA puts 5% at handover and AJA's Villa Jūra puts 2.5% there. In both cases, fulfilling all earlier advertised calls would leave relatively little unpaid when the buyer is inspecting the finished property.

The timing of Puri Sidem's published version is particularly easy to overstate. Its sales page separately advertises a May 2027 handover, while the payment schedule uses periods measured from the transaction. Without the actual signing date, saying that the whole USD 510,000 must leave the buyer's account before handover would be speculation. Under the October Q&A, the developer describes a handover-linked final payment instead.

When building progress slips, the effect on the next transfer depends on its trigger. A date-driven instalment may still fall due even where work is behind, unless the signed terms say otherwise or an applicable legal remedy is established. A certified-progress instalment depends on what constitutes certification, who issues it and whether an objection can stop the process. Held funds create a further timing question: a buyer might have paid the custodian even while the developer has not yet become entitled to a release.

The handover annex should answer practical questions in a coherent order. Who tells the buyer that the villa is ready? What period is allowed for inspection? Can minor defects be recorded without waiving the obligation to fix them? Who signs the final acceptance document, what comes with the keys, and when is the last instalment invoiced or released? If an extension of time, price adjustment, contractual penalty, refund or termination may arise, the relevant event and procedure need to be written down. No universal right to retain 10% or to stop every payment pending an SLF has been demonstrated for all structures of Bali off-plan transactions.

The first point to stop treating a marketing schedule as an instruction to pay is when the seller cannot say which schedule applies. Puri Sidem's 70% at transaction and the later 30% reservation down payment describe materially different demands on a buyer's liquidity. Neither statement proves fraud or even an error; they might relate to revised terms or distinct sales arrangements. A unit-specific offer needs one price, one reservation agreement, one instalment annex, and an explicit statement about whether the initial deposit is part of the purchase price.

An equally serious gap appears when the seller sends an invoice for a milestone that has no observable boundary. On Solaya's public wording, the middle 30% is “during construction”. On Senang's schedule, 20% becomes due when 65% progress is said to have been achieved. The former needs a definition of the event; the latter needs a credible method of measuring it. A signed scope of work, a named person authorised to certify progress, and a process for inspection and disagreement give the payment trigger meaning. Without them, the buyer cannot distinguish a properly due instalment from a premature request solely by checking the project website.

Payment destination is a separate decision, even after the stage itself is clear. The party marketing a villa may differ from the party to the construction contract, the company issuing an invoice or the bank-account holder. That difference is not inherently improper; it can reflect the project's legal structure. What matters for this cash transfer is documented authority and discharge: if the buyer pays the named recipient, will the payment legally satisfy the debt owed to the contractual party? A sudden change to a personal or third-party account, unsupported by an agreed instruction, leaves that question open.

Escrow language deserves the same precision. AJA's website tells buyers that money is deposited into notary custody and released following verified work, while the exact deed and operational terms have not been reviewed. A credible arrangement should identify the holder, the account and beneficial ownership arrangements where relevant, the evidence required for a release, who may authorise it, and what happens after prolonged non-completion or a contractual dispute. Until those are known, “97.5% paid before handover” cannot be converted into either “97.5% available to the developer” or “97.5% safely recoverable from escrow”.

A small final instalment can narrow the buyer's practical leverage over unresolved handover defects even when earlier stage payments were made correctly. It makes the remedy clauses, inspection window and release rules especially relevant before the earlier 95% or 97.5% has been scheduled or paid. This observation is not a reason to assume that the villa will be defective, nor a claim that withholding money is always lawful. For an agreement already signed, the possibility of stopping a transfer depends on the contract, the facts of any breach and applicable Indonesian law. The immediate question to put in writing is specific: which signed clause makes this instalment due, which document proves its condition was met, and which entity is authorised to receive or release the funds? If the answers remain inconsistent, the payment terms need to be reconciled rather than guessed.