Registration runs four days at ₾150, or hours at ₾350

The core bundle is a passport, a sale and purchase agreement in Georgian or in a bilingual version, proof of payment such as a bank receipt, and an application. Depending on the case you may also need a power of attorney, a spouse's consent, or permission from the guardianship authority where a minor holds a share. For a buyer used to jurisdictions where conveyancing runs for weeks through a solicitor, the brevity is the surprise. It is also the reason the process rewards preparation badly done: with so few documents, a single wrong field carries the whole file.

The delays described are all outside the registry's own clock. An error in a name, a passport number or a cadastral code sends the file back and costs another day or two. An existing mortgage or other encumbrance has to come off first, and one case cited took about two weeks to clear. A bank transfer can take one to three banking days, and registration may wait on proof that the funds arrived. If neither party speaks Georgian, an accredited interpreter is required, adding an hour or three. A power of attorney executed abroad means the main contract must be notarised. Peak season adds queueing at the Public Service Halls on top of all of it.

This is the single most consequential line in the whole process and the one most often misunderstood. Title arises from the entry in the register, not from the date on the contract. A signed agreement and a transferred payment do not make you the owner; the registry entry does. The practical consequence is that the gap between signing and registering is a period in which the buyer has paid and does not yet own, and the length of that gap is therefore not an administrative detail but the duration of a real exposure. It is the reason the ₾200 difference between the four-day and the same-day service is often the cheapest money in the transaction.

First, foreigners cannot acquire agricultural land, and the article warns bluntly that nominal structures built to get around that carry a high risk of being invalidated — which means the risk is not a fine but the loss of the asset. The same exclusion appears in the residence-permit rules, so an agricultural plot fails on both counts at once. Second, a registry extract shows what is registered, and that is not the same as showing everything that could be claimed: potential third-party claims such as an inheritance dispute may not appear. A clean extract is necessary and it is not sufficient, which is the argument for a lawyer looking at the title history rather than only at today's print-out.