Checking a Bali villa developer before you buy

Most Bali villas bought off-plan are sold by developers that are, legally, businesses with a specific license class, a certificate and a registration record that anyone can look up. Buyers rarely ask for them. This page reads the 2025 license class in OSS, the housing ministry's developer certification regulation and public registry, the 2021 housing regulation and the 2011 housing law, and turns them into checks.

Seven words on a developer's paperwork

The terms in the regulations and the registry.

Six checks, and where each rule sits

The license class

Under KBLI 2025, 68111 is “Aktivitas Pengembangan Bangunan dan Lahan Hunian” — buying and selling residential buildings, developing houses, flats or apartments, and developing residential building projects for sale. OSS rates it medium-low risk at every scale with a standard certificate, issued by the regent or mayor within one regency and by the Minister for a PMA. Its listed obligations include a KKPR for the housing, regional approval of the site plan and of the plan to split the parent HGB certificate per plot, and receipts for audited accounts and reports on the PPJB system (OSS — KBLI 2025 68111 (2026)). Building it is a different class: construction is 41011. Builders' licenses.

The certificate and the registry

Permen PUPR 24/2018 requires a housing developer to hold an SP2, issued by the Director General (Pasal 26); the applicant must be a member of an accredited developer association (Pasal 28); the certificate lasts four years and can be renewed (Pasal 42); and certified developers are registered with a number and loaded into an information system (Pasal 44). That system is SIRENG: a public search by developer name or NPWP returns the registration number, association and whether the status is AKTIF or TIDAK AKTIF, with a registration document carrying a verification QR code (SIRENG — Sistem Registrasi Pengembang, Ministry of Housing (2026)).

Who may be a developer

The certification rule allows legal entities and individuals, national and foreign, with individuals limited to small qualification and foreign entities to medium and large (Permen PUPR 24/2018 Pasal 24). The housing law defines its legal entities as founded by Indonesian citizens (UU 1/2011 Pasal 1 angka 26). The two are not reconciled in the texts; a buyer can simply check which kind the seller is.

What the marketing must already show

Before marketing at all, a developer must hold zoning certainty, land title, certainty of the house's status, a building permit proved by the PBG, and a construction guarantee from a bank or non-bank institution (PP 12/2021 Pasal 22C). The marketing itself must state the zoning letter number, the land certificate number, the support letter, the approval number and date for a corporate developer, and the PBG number and date (Pasal 22D). Those numbers are checkable: the certificate against the land office, the PBG against the regency, the developer against SIRENG. Checking the land data. The PBG.

A brochure, step by step

1. Developer. Name and NPWP on SIRENG; status active; the association named.
2. License. The NIB shows KBLI 68111 for the project location.
3. Land. The certificate number in the brochure matches a land office record in the developer's name or a documented arrangement.
4. Building. A PBG number and date for the project.
5. Money. A schedule for building, PPJB and deed is disclosed; no more than 80% before the PPJB conditions. Off-plan rules.

When a developer breaks the rules

Selling housing plots or a ready-to-build lot area before settling the land title carries up to five years in prison or a fine of up to IDR 5 billion (UU 1/2011 Pasal 154). Handing over, or drawing more than 80% of payment, before the requirements are met carries up to one year's detention or IDR 1 billion (Pasal 155); the 2021 regulation adds a license freeze, loss of incentives and administrative fines of IDR 100 million to IDR 1 billion (PP 12/2021 Pasal 135). Building against the spatial plan leads to freezing and revoking the PBG and to demolition (Pasal 134). The housing law's administrative sanctions run from written warnings to freezing or revoking the business license, fines and closing the site (UU 1/2011 Pasal 150, amended). Certified developers face a warning, a three-month freeze or revocation of the SP2 by severity (Permen PUPR 24/2018 Pasal 49-50).

What this page does not cover

• Any developer or project. We rate none.
• Leasehold villas sold by developers, which are leases rather than sales of a house.
• Apartments and strata titles.

Common questions