Buying house with an Indian

Hi,

I am a foreigner, wanting to buy a house in Kerala, with my Indian boyfriend. We are getting married in August and are are both going to pay for the house. I know that, I can buy property with an Indian citizen but am trying to find out about my rights in the process (will I be registered on the title with him) as well as just finding out simple information about the process - such as how do you transfer titles, pay stamp duties, how much the admin costs are to buy a house formally etc.

The house we are thinking about is actually in my boyfriend's village. I know there are more informal ways in this case to buy the house but I just want to be clear about the official ways to by it.

Any help / suggestions of where to look for advice would be most appreciated.

I guess you could get it registered in your joint names, though that would be illegal if you- a foreigner- did not have the right to buy in the first place.


In your place, I would wait till I was eligible to buy (PIO card or other) before I parted with any money for purchase. Not to cast aspersions on your boyfriend at all, btw; that is the safer option for you all round.


Don't know Kerala rates, but registration and stamp duty are payable and are done within a day. Admin costs? Brokerage, perhaps, but nothing much else.

Thanks Captain for your advice.

One of the issues is that the property we want to buy is the actual neighbour of my boyfriend's family home. The owners are looking to sell, its a very popular tourist place, with the prices doubling over the last couple of years and expected to continue to increase. We are not interested in an investment but rather for us to have a family home in my boyfriend's village. It's a case of now or possibly never being able to afford somewhere. Together, now we can pull the money together but it would not be possible, each of us alone, to do this.

So, if it is completely illegal for me to be put on the title at this point then we buy the house in his name. Can I ask - once I have a PIO card (I believe possible after being married for a year) - is it then possible to also add me to the title?

Or is it like Australia, in that married spouses are also entitled to dual ownership over property?

That probably seems a stupid question but I am getting a lot of mixed messages.

Thanks again and happy new year.

Nothing in India is . Your boyfriend may well be a lovely man, and the whole deal a great bargain - but my instinct would be that it all sounds altogether too good! 'Opportunity of a lifetime' etc.

Furthermore you have no real understanding of Australian (indeed most Western countrys') law. Married couples do not have automatic 'dual ownership'. The principle you are aspiring to is 'Joint Tenancy' - and it's never automatic. It's a contractual term.

Property disputes are inevitably messy and expensive - and I can see you moving at a headlong pace towards such a dispute - in the future.

Find yourself a good, honest Indian lawyer - with no connection whatsover to your boyfriend's family (such an ephemeral term - boyfriend!).

Ask him the questions - and listen very carefully to the answers.

I'm sorry to sound so negative - but I'm 69 years old - and have been 'there' - and done much of 'that' in my time!!!

Thanks Obione

I've already made my decision about my boyfriend, and believe me ... I too have been here before with property disputes but with an Australian man.

I'm not naive when it comes to the situation but want to be as informed and equipped as I can with information before making a choice.

The issue is, in my native Australia / UK - I know where to go for information.

Disclaimer: Not an expert

To both the questions, yes, though, as obione says, it is not automatic. (and, later on, you would require the boyfriends consent to 'transfer' the property then in his name to both of yours- and this may well entail additional charges at the registrar)

In India, the title of the property can be in anybody's name- or joint ones- married or not.

The complication in your case is that as a foreigner, you cannot buy property in India. Be aware that even a PIO is barred from buying certain property- eg agricultural (I think). Agricultural property is not one that is being used for agriculture, but one that is so designated by the authorities, to the best of my knowledge. Constructed on land may sometimes be 'agricultural'.


If you pay now and expect joint title later, you are completely dependant on the boyfriend to do so. You can't then claim you paid for part of it, because you may be admitting you did something illegal.

Second the good lawyer bit. Maybe a 'loan' can be shown on paper or something like that.

I'm a PIO-card holder, married to an Indian, Madangmeri, and our house is in her name, even though I already had the status when we bought it. It just took a layer of complexity out of the situation.

Whilst it is a situation of complete trust, I still have a sentimental thing about the name on the papers, and, being well into middle age, inheritance is something to planned for too. If the house is in joint names, then, in the event of the demise of one of us, the other has (given that the legal niceties have been done, err, nicely; there is more than one form of joint ownership) nothing at all to do re the most important asset in both lives, the roof over the head.

We were told, some time back, that it would be like selling/buying the house all over again, with the considerable stamp duties, etc, to pay. Since then, however, I've read about "settlement", which might be a way around it.

Any way, this is something I am thinking about thinking about, so I can't give any more detail, but, along with the Captains loan idea (maybe even a mortgage?) it might add to your avenues of thought.

Sorry to say, but I would NEVER buy land in India with an Indian partner. I have lived here over ten years, and seen way too many people cheated, sometimes out of their life savings. So often it is a case of a local Indian man and a foreigner. The foreigner provides the money, and the local signs his name to make it "legal". Shortly after a little renovation, and fix up of the property the "Indian boyfriend" find a million reasons to dump the foreigner and try to grab the whole property for himself. the foreigner is then lost in long and emotional court battles that generally end with the Indian walking away with the house. It is painful to watch, but foreigners seem to get sucked in again and again.

I hope you are not one of them.

Neither would I. Absolutely not. No more than I would go to any country and, after meeting some charming, apparently trustworthy individual, trust them with a great part of my capital! Why on earth dose natural caution and common sense desert the people who rush to do this?

There is only one exception to this --- and that is the Indian to whom I am married and with whom I live.

Even trustworthy spouses can come with families that are not, or that are money-grabbing or expensive in one way or another. I'm glad to say that mine did not.

There are enough property squabbles among wholly Indian families!

I wonder if you quietly eloped if you could then buy the house together...I honestly don't know but it might be worth looking into, and you could still have your real wedding in August.

Alternatively, I vote for looking into showing your contribution to the house as a loan to him. I say this not because I presume him to be a sneaky native trying to take advantage of a dumb foreigner, but what if something happened to him during this time? He should want to protect you in case he somehow (God forbid) dies or becomes disabled and is unable to speak for you. Who would then be handling his affairs? Would that person honor your interests?

Tread cautiously!

If you marry and have a PIO card the property can be registered in both names. This might be worth considering, madangmeri. Also things take ages to do here, you could hold off the registering until you finally get the PIO I should think.

A friend of mine (with PIO) here has recently bought a house with her husband and both names are registered as owners of the property.

As Aishah and Nick indicated, marriage followed by PIO makes all the difference. I insisted on putting my non-Indian (PIO) husband's name on property in India to give him rights to it in case something happened to me.

To say "never buy property with an Indian" is really insulting to decent Indians out there. As Nick-H said, why would common sense precautions one would follow in any country i.e. trusting a stranger, or one with whom there are no legal ties, fly out the window when talking about India.

Yes, and never have an Indian partner either.

And never say never.

Not sure how family trusts work in India (if at all!) but our property is owned by our family trust in NZ. Similar in principle to a company but the trust has written conditions of the purchase (called a memorandum of wishes). This can stipulate what happens in the case of the demise of 1 partner, what happens after the demise of both, how proceeds are distributed to heirs, etc.

The heirs never own the house, they own the trust & you can specify the degree of complexity & makeup of the trustees.

Might be an option?