How to check a developer before you buy

In most property markets the developer is a detail. In Egyptian off-plan it is closer to the asset itself, and for a structural reason rather than a reputational one: purchase money is generally paid to the developer against contract milestones, not held by a notary or in an independent escrow account until completion. Your money is inside the business while the building goes up.

That is normal here, and it is not a reason to avoid off-plan. It is a reason to look at the counterparty with the same seriousness you would apply to the unit. What follows is what can actually be established before you pay, roughly in the order it is worth establishing it — and, just as importantly, what each check does not tell you.

None of this requires special access. Most of it requires asking specific questions in writing and noticing when the answer changes shape.

1. Delivered track record, not announced track record

The first distinction to draw is between what a developer has built and handed over and what it has launched. Brochures merge the two. A portfolio page listing twelve projects may represent two delivered, four under construction and six that exist as renders.

Ask for a list of completed handovers with dates, and for the address of something you can go and stand in. A developer with genuine delivery history answers this quickly, because it is their best argument. Hesitation here is itself information.

Then ask the harder version: were those projects delivered on the dates originally contracted, and where they were not, by how long? Delay is common and not disqualifying — the useful signal is whether a developer discusses its own delays straightforwardly or treats the question as hostile.

What this does not prove: a strong past record is not a guarantee about a current project, particularly where a developer has recently scaled up, entered a new region, or moved from city schemes into coastal ones, which demand different construction and different working capital.

2. The land the project sits on

A developer cannot give you better title than it holds itself. Establishing the basis on which the developer holds the underlying land is therefore prior to almost every other question, and it determines what you can eventually own — freehold or usufruct — and what route to registration exists.

Egypt’s registration environment is not centralised the way Dubai’s is. Where the land sits and which authority administers it changes the answer. Where the New Urban Communities Authority is the underlying land authority, its terms shape what the developer can contractually offer you. On the Red Sea mainland the position differs again.

The questions worth putting in writing: what is the developer’s title to the land, is the master plan approved, and is the specific plot your unit sits on inside that approval? See the property glossary for the vocabulary these answers will come back in, and registration and the Siraj property ID for how the record itself works.

What this does not prove: an approved master plan is not a construction guarantee, and land held cleanly can still be built out slowly.

3. Corporate and regulatory footing

You are contracting with a legal entity, not with a brand. Establish which one. Large Egyptian developers frequently operate through project-specific companies, and the entity on your contract may not be the group whose name is on the hoarding. That is ordinary practice, but you should know it rather than discover it.

Ask which company will be party to your contract, how it relates to the group being marketed to you, and whether the group stands behind the project company in any way that is written down.

The regulatory layer is worth understanding at the level of remit. The Financial Regulatory Authority oversees Egypt’s non-banking financial sector, which increasingly includes the funds and financing structures sitting behind development — see our reporting on the FRA developer-fund conversion rule for one example of how that layer moves. The New Urban Communities Authority administers land in the new cities. Neither body is a consumer guarantor, and neither vets a project on your behalf.

What this does not prove: a well-known parent group does not, by itself, put its balance sheet behind a project company.

4. What the contract actually says about failure

Every contract describes the good case. The useful reading is the bad case, and it is usually short enough to find in an afternoon.

Four provisions carry most of the weight. What happens if delivery is late — is there a defined remedy, does it start automatically, and is it capped? What happens if you need to exit — is assignment permitted, on whose consent, at what fee? What exactly is being delivered — is the finishing specification annexed, itemised, and referenced by the contract? And what is the payment schedule tied to: calendar dates, or construction milestones that must actually be reached?

That last one is more consequential than it looks. Instalments tied to milestones align your money with progress. Instalments tied to the calendar do not, and continue falling due whether or not anything is being built.

Our guides to payment plans and off-plan mechanics and managing off-plan delivery risk go further into these clauses.

What this does not prove: a well-drafted contract is a remedy on paper, and enforcing it is a separate undertaking with its own cost and timescale. Strong terms reduce risk; they do not remove the need to be comfortable with the counterparty.

5. Site evidence

Go, or send someone. A site visit answers questions no document does: whether there is activity, at what intensity, and whether the phase being sold to you is the phase being built.

Look at what is finished rather than what is started. Infrastructure — roads, utilities, landscaping — is expensive, unglamorous, and the first thing deferred by a developer under funding pressure. A project with completed structures but no services is telling you something.

Where earlier phases are occupied, the most valuable source available to you is living there. Owners in a delivered phase will tell you about handover delays, snagging, and how the service charge has behaved. That is primary evidence about how this developer treats people after the sale, which is the part no brochure covers.

What this does not prove: activity on site is a snapshot, not a trend.

6. Pricing that does not make sense

A price materially below comparable inventory is a question, not a bargain. Sometimes there is a good answer: an early phase, a genuinely inferior position, a developer buying velocity. Sometimes the answer is that the plan is longer, the finishing is thinner, the maintenance deposit is higher, or the unit is smaller than the headline implies.

Compare the total cost of ownership rather than the headline: price, plan length, maintenance deposit, service charge, and what the finishing specification actually includes. Two units at the same nominal price can differ substantially once those are itemised. See what buying actually costs.

Unusual discounting late in a phase can also indicate a developer solving a cash-flow problem rather than passing on a saving. That is not automatically a reason to walk; it is a reason to weight the earlier checks more heavily.

What this looks like in practice

Most buyers do not run all six of these, and most do not need to run them alone. The point is not to produce a dossier — it is to make sure that by the time money moves, you know which entity you are contracting with, on what land, on what delivery terms, with what exit, and against what actual delivery record.

This is the work a buyer-side advisor is for. Because we are not paid by the developer whose inventory is in front of you, benchmarking that developer against the alternatives is not a conflict for us — it is the job. See how we work.

We are a property advisory, not a law firm. Independent legal advice on your specific contract and title is something we recommend rather than replace, and we say so at the point it matters rather than after.

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