Batumi's interest-free instalment plans run to about 60 months — and there is no escrow behind them

In Batumi the normal way to buy a new-build is an interest-free instalment plan straight from the developer, with no bank involved. Market write-ups this year describe terms of around 60 months on new projects and around 18 months on completed ones. The shorter term on finished stock tells you something: the long plan is not generosity, it is how construction gets funded, and the buyer is the lender.

The point market analysts keep making is that there is no escrow mechanism for off-plan payments here. Money you pay before completion is not held by a third party against delivery; it goes to the developer. If a project stalls, your position depends on your contract and on the developer's balance sheet, not on a statutory safety net. That is a structural feature of this market, not a detail of one bad project, and it is the single most important thing to understand before signing.

Market commentary this year also warns buyers to check whether a quoted yield is gross or net of management fees and tax, because the headline figures in sales material are usually gross. A 60-month instalment plan stretches your exposure across five years of construction and letting risk, during which the flat earns nothing. Run the arithmetic on the cash you will actually have paid by handover, not on the sticker price.

Ask what the developer has finished and handed over before, not what it has launched. Ask what happens to your payments if completion slips a year, and get the answer in the contract rather than in conversation. Ask whether the plot and the permit are in the developer's name. Ask for the penalty clauses that bind them, not only the ones that bind you. And use a Georgian lawyer who is not recommended by the seller — on a five-year commitment with no escrow, that fee is the cheapest part of the purchase.