A $200m complex is being sold off plan on Batumi's Ambassadori Island — read the press release carefully

Origami Holding, a Batumi-founded development and management group that dates to 2008 and also runs architecture and hospitality divisions, has announced a multifunctional complex of residential and commercial space on Ambassadori Island in Batumi, with a stated investment of 200 million dollars. According to the announcement, the land has been acquired and initial planning and preparatory site work are complete; sales were set to open on 1 September, with unit reservations already available before that. The group cites more than 200,000 square metres of past construction. No completion date for the complex is given.

The release states that the project financials and return projections come from the developer and that no outside firm independently verified them. That is an unusually candid disclosure, and it is the most useful line in the document. It does not suggest anything is wrong with the project; it tells you what kind of information you are reading. Any yield or return figure attached to an off-plan island development is, until a third party checks it, a seller's forecast — and should be weighed as one.

Reservations opening before construction is normal in Batumi, and so is the list of questions that protects the buyer. Ask for the construction permit and the stage it has reached; ask what the contract says happens to your money if the schedule slips or the project stops, and in whose account it sits meanwhile; ask whether the price is tied to the dollar or the lari and who carries the difference. Ask what the land title actually covers on a made island, and ask for the developer's delivered projects by name and date so the 200,000 square metres can be checked against finished buildings.