NovPut the payment schedule on your own calendar
Two schedules for the same price can require money at different times. An illustrative comparison and the questions to take back to a Cambodian developer.
This article reflects the named expert’s practical perspective. See NovAsia’s editorial policy for how material is prepared and reviewed.
A small opening percentage attracts attention. For the buyer, the harder question may be the largest payment further down the page. When explaining instalments, percentages should turn into amounts early enough for the difficult payment to be noticed.
Take two entirely hypothetical schedules for a USD 100,000 price. These are not offers from Cambodian projects. For this illustration, the payment milestones match and additional expenses are left outside the model.
| Payment milestone | Schedule A | Schedule B |
|---|---|---|
| At signing | USD 10,000 | USD 30,000 |
| One year later | USD 30,000 | USD 50,000 |
| At handover | USD 60,000 | USD 20,000 |
Both total USD 100,000. By the end of the first year, A has required USD 40,000 and B USD 80,000. Schedule B leaves a smaller final amount, at the cost of needing more money earlier. Neither can be described as easier without knowing the buyer's funding calendar.
A milestone needs a definition
In a real offer, “one year later” needs a starting point, and “handover” needs the meaning given to it in the documents. Those definitions should not be silently replaced with dates that make the example simpler.
The same care is needed if the developer changes a construction target. A new date in a presentation does not, by itself, explain the effect on a payment obligation. The relevant contractual terms and confirmation have to be considered. My role is to help the buyer locate and understand the issue, not to promise an extension on another party's behalf.
Leave room for the amounts outside the schedule
Our example excludes transaction expenses, furnishing and running costs. For a particular offer these require separate clarification. Their absence from the payment slide cannot be recorded as zero. A reservation payment also needs to be reconciled with the schedule: the documents determine whether it is credited within an instalment or treated otherwise.
Beside the seller's dates, the buyer's expected availability of funds should stay visible, with uncertain income or unapproved borrowing clearly marked. The difficult point may then be a single payment at a particular time, rather than the total price.
That gives a useful basis for a request to the developer. The buyer can ask about the payment that does not fit. An agreed, documented variation can then support a revised calculation. Rearranging the figures in our own table cannot do that.
The shape of the schedule can matter more than the total price
A payment plan becomes meaningful when each percentage is translated into an amount and placed on a date. A 20% instalment is not an abstract feature; it is USD 20,000 on a USD 100,000 unit and USD 30,000 on a USD 150,000 unit. Buyers often react to the percentage first and the cash requirement later. I prefer to reverse that order.
The number of instalments also matters. A schedule with a manageable deposit can still become difficult if two large payments sit close together. Looking only at the opening and final percentages can hide the pressure in the middle. For a real offer, I would want the full sequence before describing the plan as flexible.
Funding assumptions should sit beside that sequence. If one payment depends on selling another asset or obtaining financing that has not yet been secured, the dependency deserves its own note. There is nothing inherently wrong with planning around future money; the problem is treating it as already certain.
Add the buyer’s own calendar beside the seller’s
The most useful comparison is two timelines in parallel. On one side: the contractual milestones and amounts. On the other: when the buyer expects funds to be available, with uncertainty clearly marked. A mismatch then becomes specific. It may be a single payment in a single month rather than a vague conclusion that the entire property is unaffordable.
That specificity improves negotiation. Instead of asking for “better instalments,” the buyer can ask whether a particular payment can be moved or divided. Until the other party confirms a change in the appropriate form, the original schedule remains the basis for planning.
I would also leave room for costs outside the headline schedule. Their exact nature and amount depend on the offer, so they should be confirmed rather than guessed. The important point is that an omitted cost is not automatically zero. The buyer needs enough uncommitted cash to deal with the parts of the transaction that sit outside the neat payment chart.
A schedule is therefore not good because it has a low deposit or bad because it has a large handover payment. It is good or bad *for a particular funding pattern*. Once the buyer can see the amounts on their own calendar, the sales percentages stop doing the thinking for them.