Start with a call.
Usually within one business day
The headline price is between eight and fifteen per cent short of what leaves your account, and what it costs you every year after that is a number almost nobody is shown before the notary appointment.
Take these lines to a developer and ask which of them they are covering. Some cover the notary. A few cover company formation. Almost none cover furnishing to a lettable standard, and the ones who say the price is “all in” are usually excluding BPHTB, which on a USD 400,000 purchase is USD 20,000.
The structure changes the arithmetic, not just the labels. BPHTB is a duty on acquiring a right over land and buildings, so it bites on HGB through a PT PMA and on Hak Pakai. A lease acquires no title and attracts none. But the ten per cent final tax on the rent, legally the landowner’s liability, is passed to the tenant in most Bali lease contracts. Read yours. If it is silent, assume you are paying it.
The annual side is the one that surprises people in year three. A PT PMA costs roughly USD 1,500 to 2,000 a year to keep compliant, every year, and a company that stops filing accrues penalties and can lose its licences. That is the real argument against incorporating for a small purchase, and it is a better argument than the setup fee.
Seven questions about your stay permit, your horizon and what you want the place for. It names one of leasehold, Hak Pakai or a PT PMA, and shows what taking it costs you.
Put the brochure's nightly rate and occupancy in. Watch commission, running costs and the final tax on gross rent take it apart, line by line.
A lease is a wasting asset and it does not waste in a straight line. Drag the years and watch where the value actually goes.