Buying from abroad without being there

What actually requires you to be present

Less than most buyers expect, and more than most brokers admit. Identification and banking formalities, registration of the agreement, and anything requiring a biometric are the parts that are genuinely difficult to do from another country.

Selection, negotiation, diligence and payment are not — they are documentary, and they are the parts where being physically present adds the least.

The power of attorney, used properly

A power of attorney executed in favour of someone you trust in India is the ordinary instrument for bridging the gap. It is executed abroad, attested at the Indian mission in the country you are in, and then stamped and, where required, registered in India.

Two rules are worth more than any amount of advice about the format. Keep it specific — a document that names the property and the acts permitted, rather than a general power over your affairs. And keep it revocable, in writing, in terms you have read.

Banking and repatriation, in outline

Purchase consideration is paid through normal banking channels from the accounts a non-resident is permitted to hold, and the payment trail is what later supports any repatriation of sale proceeds. Keep the bank's own advices for every remittance; reconstructing them years later is unpleasant.

The rules on repatriation are specific to your residency status, the property's type and how long you hold it, and they change. This is a description of the shape of the process, not tax or legal advice: take advice from a chartered accountant on your own facts before you commit.

What to have checked before you sign

• Title, and the chain of it — through your own advocate, not the seller's.
• The RERA registration on the authority's own register, and the declared completion date on it.
• The approved plan for the specific unit, against what you were shown.
• Every payment milestone in the agreement, and what each one is tied to.