Who writes this

What I do

I advise foreign buyers and investors on property across Bali and the surrounding islands, Nusa Penida, Lombok, the Gilis, and further east where clients are looking. The work covers the whole arc of a project, not one slice of it:

• Land and property acquisition. What can actually be held, under which right, and what the certificate really says
• Due diligence. Title, zoning, permits, and the licensing position underneath the sale
• Development and construction projects. What is buildable on a plot once KDB, KLB and setbacks are applied, and what the permit sequence actually costs in time
• Structuring, leasehold, Hak Pakai or a company-held right, and which one fits the intended use rather than the one that closes fastest
• Investment analysis. What a project returns after the costs that get left out of the projection

Different islands are not interchangeable. Spatial rules, permit timelines and enforcement all vary by regency and province, and an assumption carried from Canggu to Lombok is a common and expensive mistake.

Why this site exists

Most Bali property information is published by people selling Bali property. That is not a conspiracy, it is an incentive, and it means the honest answers to the hardest questions tend not to get written down.

Foreigners cannot own freehold land in Indonesia. Nominee arrangements, still the most commonly sold structure on the island, have been void since 1960 and criminal in Bali since February 2026. Advertised rental yields are gross figures that ignore platform commission, regional tax, management, staffing and, on a lease, the fact that the asset expires. None of that is secret. It is simply inconvenient to the sale.

This site publishes it anyway.

How to judge whether I am any use

Not by testimonials, which anyone can write. By whether the reasoning holds up when you check it:

• Regulations are named by number in the text where one exists, so you can look it up rather than take my word for it
• Pages are rewritten when the rules change, not left to rot
• Where rules are ambiguous, recently changed, or applied differently between regencies, the page says so instead of picking the convenient reading
• Where a figure is commonly cited but subject to revision, it is presented that way rather than as settled fact
• Nothing here is framed as a workaround for foreign ownership restrictions

The return calculator is the clearest example. It is built to show what a property actually returns after every cost, including the lease amortisation that turns an advertised 12% into something very different. An adviser trying to sell you a villa would not publish that tool.

How I work

Send me a deal and I will tell you which link in the chain breaks first, the zoning, the licence, the lease term, or the numbers. The intake list is here. A first look costs you nothing.

The most useful thing I can tell someone is often “not this one”. A deal that cannot survive being checked properly is not a deal worth doing, whoever is selling it.

What this is not

It is not legal advice, tax advice, or financial advice, and reading it does not create an adviser relationship. Indonesian regulations change often and are administered inconsistently between regencies and between individual offices. Before you sign anything or transfer any money, verify it with your own licensed Indonesian notary or PPAT, your own lawyer, and your own registered tax consultant, not the seller's. The full disclaimer is here.

I work in Bali property, which is how I know what goes wrong. That also means I am not a neutral party, so check what I tell you against your own notary, lawyer and tax consultant, exactly as you would with anyone else in this market.