Glossary

Younger sibling / dear. The counterpart to bong — used to address someone younger or in a junior position. Commonly used between romantic partners and to address service staff. Aun srei (អូនស្រី) = younger sister, aun pros (អូនប្រុស) = younger brother.

The National Bank of Cambodia’s blockchain-based interbank payment system — in effect a central-bank digital payment rail that links the country’s banks and wallets. For property buyers it is mostly plumbing: local payments, agent fees, and utility bills increasingly move over Bakong. Large purchase funds still arrive by international wire into a Cambodian bank account, so treat Bakong as how money moves inside the country, not into it.

Yes (male) / No. Bat (បាទ) is the polite “yes” used by male speakers — you’ll hear it constantly as a conversation filler, like “uh-huh.” Teh (ទេ) means “no” and is used by both genders. Women use chah (ចាស) for “yes.” An easy rule: men say bat, women say chah, everyone says teh for no.

Older sibling / Mister / Miss. The most common form of address in Cambodia. Used for anyone slightly older, in a higher position, or as a general respectful address to a stranger (like “sir” or “ma’am”). Bong srei (បងស្រី) = older sister, bong pros (បងប្រុស) = older brother. You’ll hear it everywhere — from market stalls to business meetings.

A gated community of landed villas, townhouses, and shophouses — the dominant housing product for Cambodian buyers, ringing Phnom Penh in ever-wider belts. Boreys are typically sold off-plan on instalment plans secured by post-dated cheques rather than mortgages. For foreigners the catch is the land: borey units sit on land title, which foreigners cannot hold directly, so this is primarily a local market that foreign capital enters only through structures.

An official search at the provincial or district land office to verify that a title is authentic, that the seller is the registered owner, and that no mortgages, liens, or disputes are recorded against the parcel. It is the single most important check in a Cambodian purchase, it costs little, and it is routinely skipped. Run it through your own lawyer — not the seller’s — and run it again immediately before completion, since encumbrances can be registered between agreement and transfer.

A 20% tax on gains from property disposals, repeatedly postponed and currently scheduled to take effect in 2027, applying to residents and non-residents alike. The rules allow gains to be computed either on actual cost (with documentation) or on a deemed 80%-of-price cost basis — which method wins depends on your numbers, so keep every invoice from day one. Any exit model for Cambodian property bought today should be run with this tax in it.

Yes (female). The polite “yes” used by female speakers — the counterpart to a man’s bat (បាទ). Like bat, it functions as a conversation filler (“yes,” “uh-huh,” “I see”). Men should still use bat even when speaking to a woman; using chah as a man marks you as a foreigner (which is fine — they’ll appreciate the effort).

Wait a moment / Hang on. Extremely common in daily conversation. Used when you need someone to wait briefly — at a shop counter, on the phone, or while someone fetches documents. Tich on its own means “a little” or “small.”

The governing document of a strata building — it defines the common areas, the management structure, the maintenance fees, the sinking fund, and the rules every unit owner is bound by. Most buyers never read it before signing; the fee schedule and the developer’s ongoing control rights are where the surprises live. Ask for it during due diligence, and treat a building that cannot produce one as unfinished paperwork, whatever the sales office says.

A multi-unit building registered for individual unit ownership under Cambodia’s co-ownership law. This is the one property class foreigners can own outright — strata-titled units above the ground floor, up to 70% of a building. The legal path is clean; the investment case is where the work is: Phnom Penh’s condo supply has run ahead of end-user demand for years, so exit liquidity deserves more scrutiny than the ownership rules.

A provisional possession document issued by local authorities, recognising that someone occupies and uses land — a precursor to full title rather than ownership itself. CPCs sit a rung below soft title in the hierarchy of Cambodian land paper. They matter mostly in rural and peri-urban land deals, where a seller may hold nothing stronger. Land held only on a CPC should be priced for the possibility that the titling process surfaces competing claims.

The verification work done before money moves: title authenticity at the land office, the seller’s identity and authority, encumbrances, zoning, permits, and — for off-plan — the developer’s licences and financial standing. In mature markets much of this is institutionalised; in Cambodia it is on you and your lawyer, and the gap between deals that were checked and deals that were trusted is where most foreign-buyer losses happen.

A long-term lease of state land granted for large-scale agricultural or industrial development — plantation, processing, and similar projects. ELCs are not a vehicle for individual property buyers, but they matter as context: concession boundaries have historically collided with village land claims, and land near a contested ELC carries dispute risk that does not show up on the title itself. If a rural plot looks cheap, check what surrounds it.

A full ownership certificate issued by the Ministry of Land Management (MLMUPC) and registered at the national level. It is the strongest form of land title in Cambodia — defensible in court, mortgageable at banks, and the only title class a cautious buyer should treat as settled ownership. Converting a soft title to hard title is possible but costs time and money, which is why much of the market still trades on weaker paper.

I want to speak with a lawyer. The polite full stop to any pressure to sign today, pay a “reservation fee” in cash, or skip the paperwork because “this is how it works here”. No legitimate counterparty objects to a buyer taking legal advice; treat any resistance to this sentence as due-diligence data in its own right.

I want to buy a house. The sentence that states your business — useful with agents, commune officials, and neighbours who will inevitably ask why a foreigner is photographing the street. Swap pteah (house) for dey (land) or khondo (condo) as needed.

A long-term registered lease — typically 50 years, renewable — used where freehold is unavailable, most commonly by foreigners who cannot own land outright. A properly drafted lease registered against a hard title is a real property right, but it is not ownership: the reversion belongs to the landowner, the term runs down, and resale liquidity is thinner. Price leasehold land accordingly, and never accept an unregistered “private” lease for serious money.

A terraced, townhouse-style unit in a borey — shared walls on one or both sides, typically two to four storeys on a narrow plot. Link houses (often just called “flats” locally) are the volume product of the borey belt and the entry price point for landed living. Build quality varies sharply between developers at this price tier, which is why the developer’s track record matters more than the show unit.

A GPS-mapped hard title issued under Cambodia’s modern land-titling programme (originally the Land Management and Administration Project), carrying a QR code that links to the national cadastral record. LMAP titles have precisely surveyed boundaries, which removes the boundary-dispute risk that haunts older paper titles. If you are choosing between otherwise comparable plots, the one with an LMAP title is the easier asset to defend and resell.

The handful of major Cambodian business groups — Canadia/OCIC, Chip Mong, and their peers — that build most of Phnom Penh’s new districts, satellite cities, and large borey projects. Their backing matters because completion risk is the central risk in Cambodian off-plan: a conglomerate with banking and industrial arms can finish a tower through a downturn in a way a thinly capitalised single-project developer cannot. Scale is not a guarantee of quality, but it is a real signal on delivery.

The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction — the authority behind every hard title in Cambodia. It runs the national cadastre, the LMAP titling programme, and the provincial land offices where cadastral searches and transfers happen. If a document does not trace back to MLMUPC’s registry, it is not a hard title, whatever it is called in the listing.

Cambodia’s central bank. It licenses and regulates the commercial banks and microfinance lenders that write mortgages, sets the prudential rules that shape lending to foreigners, and operates the Bakong payment system. For a buyer, NBC matters indirectly but constantly: deposit safety, the dollarisation policy, and whether a bank can legally take your mortgage all run through its rulebook.

An arrangement where a Cambodian national or company holds legal title on behalf of a foreign beneficial owner — historically common, legally fragile. The constitution reserves land ownership for Khmer citizens, so a bare nominee deal rests on side agreements a court may decline to enforce against the person whose name is on the title. Cambodia’s regulated trust regime now offers a registered alternative with real legal standing; if you are considering any nominee arrangement, take independent legal advice first and assume the worst case is losing the asset.

Have you eaten yet? Another common Khmer greeting — hospitality is central to Cambodian culture, and asking about food is a natural conversation opener. The polite response is nyam howie (ញ៉ាំហើយ) = “already eaten” even if you haven’t. When you visit someone’s home, expect to be offered food and drink; politely refusing is fine — som or-kun, khnhom nyam howie (សូមអរគុណ ខ្ញុំញ៉ាំហើយ) = “thanks, I’ve eaten” — but accepting is a genuine connection.

Buying a unit before construction is complete — often before it has started — on a staged payment plan against the developer’s promise to deliver. The pitch is a discount to completed prices and first pick of units; the risk is that you are an unsecured creditor of a construction company for two to four years. In Cambodia, where stalled towers are a visible part of the skyline, the developer’s balance sheet and track record are the purchase decision.

The standard payment mechanism in borey purchases: the buyer hands the developer a stack of cheques dated monthly or quarterly across the whole instalment period, sometimes five to ten years of them. It is developer financing without a bank — no credit check, but also none of a mortgage’s protections, and bouncing a cheque is a criminal matter in Cambodia. Understand exactly what happens to your paid-in equity if you stop paying before the title transfers.

How much is the deposit? Reservation deposits in Cambodia run from a few hundred dollars on a condo to several percent on land, and the terms matter more than the amount: is it refundable, under what conditions, and is that in writing? Pay nothing in cash without a receipt naming the property, the amount, and the refund terms — the deposit is where bad deals take their first bite.

Marketing tiers for detached villas in borey projects — “Queen” for the mid-size detached product, “King” for the largest plots and floorplans. The labels are sales-office vocabulary rather than legal categories, but they are universal in borey price lists, so you will negotiate in them. As with all borey stock, what you are really buying is the developer’s delivery record and the project’s position, with the villa tier setting your place in that project’s internal market.

A developer’s promise to pay a fixed rental yield — commonly 6–8% — for a set period after handover, heavily used in off-plan condo marketing. The guarantee is only as good as the company behind it, and the cost is usually priced into the unit: you are often buying your own yield back at a premium. Compare the guaranteed figure against what comparable units actually rent for, and read what happens when the guarantee period ends — that cliff is where resale values get tested.

A self-contained new district built from scratch — Koh Pich (Diamond Island), Norea City, Chroy Changvar — combining residential towers, offices, retail, and civic facilities under one master developer. Satellite cities are Phnom Penh’s showcase projects and its biggest concentration of supply risk in one place: when they work, they reprice a whole quarter of the city; when absorption slows, entire districts of inventory compete for the same buyers.

The Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia — the regulator of the securities sector, which in property terms matters for two things: listed real-estate exposure on the CSX, and the registered trust regime that gives foreigners a regulated alternative to nominee arrangements. A trust holding property for a foreign beneficiary should be registered under SERC’s oversight; ask for the registration, not just the trust deed.

The classic Cambodian mixed-use unit: ground-floor commercial space with living quarters above, built in terraced rows. Shophouses anchor both the old city blocks and new borey developments, and they are how much of Cambodian small business operates. As an investment they price partly on the commercial frontage — corner units and main-road positions carry real premiums — and like all landed property, the land title puts direct foreign ownership out of reach.

The reserve fund a co-owned building sets aside for major repairs — lifts, roofs, facades, pumps — as distinct from day-to-day maintenance fees. Strata practice puts it around 10% of monthly maintenance contributions. A building with no funded reserve is deferring its bills onto future owners; ask for the fund balance and the audit trail during due diligence, because an underfunded tower eventually presents every owner with a special levy.

The inspection of a newly completed unit to catalogue defects — cracked tiles, failed sealant, faulty wiring, doors that do not close — before you accept handover. Your leverage to get defects fixed peaks at this moment and collapses the day you sign the handover certificate, because final payment usually falls due with it. Inspect methodically or hire someone who does it professionally, and put the defect list in writing with deadlines.

Local-level ownership recognition issued at the sangkat (commune) or district level — not registered with the national cadastre. Soft titles are cheaper and faster to transfer, and a large share of Cambodian property still trades on them, but they are weaker evidence of ownership: overlapping claims surface, and a soft title loses to a hard title covering the same land. Foreign buyers should treat soft-title property as a risk decision, not a discount.

Please / May I. The polite request marker in Khmer. Place it before any verb: som meul (សូមមើល) = “please show me,” som chong (សូមចង់) = “please want.” Essential for property context: som meul blong (សូមមើលប្លង់) = “may I see the title?” — one of the most useful phrases you’ll use in Cambodia.

Please give me the contract in English. You should never sign a document you cannot read. Ask for the English version — most established developers have one — and then check which language version legally prevails in a dispute, because a clause buried in the Khmer text usually wins unless the contract says otherwise. That prevailing-language clause is one your lawyer should read twice.

May I see the title? The most important sentence in this glossary. Every serious conversation about Cambodian property starts with the paper — asking to see the blong early tells you whether you are dealing with a hard title, a soft title, or a story. A seller who hesitates at this question has answered it.

Thank you. Or-kun alone is the everyday form; som or-kun adds politeness. Khmer business culture runs on courtesy and patience — deals move at the speed of the relationship, and the buyer who thanks the commune clerk, the agent, and the seller’s mother gets phone calls returned. It costs nothing and it is the cheapest negotiating advantage available.

Excuse me / Sorry. The polite attention-getter and the all-purpose apology in one. Use it to open a question to a stranger, to interrupt, or to step past someone in a crowded market. In a negotiation, som toh before a hard question — about the title, the price, the developer’s last project — softens the delivery without softening the question.

Hello / Greetings. The all-purpose Khmer greeting, good at any time of day — romanised as both sous-dey (the closest phonetic spelling) and sursdei (a common alternative). The formal version is chom reap sour (ជម្រាបសួរ) for addressing someone of higher status, paired with the sampeah — palms together at chest height. In daily life — market stalls, borey sales offices, taxi drivers — a simple sous-dey bong (hello, older sibling) is perfect, and effort with the basics is noticed: it changes the tone of a negotiation.

The primary contract in a Cambodian property transaction, setting out the price, payment schedule, handover terms, and remedies. In off-plan purchases the SPA is usually the developer’s standard form, drafted in the developer’s favour — penalty clauses, delay tolerances, and specification changes deserve line-by-line review. Insist on an English version that is contractually binding, not just a courtesy translation, and have your own lawyer read it before you sign anything or pay a deposit.

A documentary tax applied to loan agreements and certain legal instruments, typically in the 1–2% range depending on the document. It is a smaller line than the 4% transfer tax but tends to be forgotten in cost models, especially where a mortgage is involved. When your lawyer quotes transaction costs, ask for the full schedule — transfer tax, stamp duty, registration fees, and their own fee — as one number.

A co-ownership title covering an individual unit in a registered co-owned building, plus a share of the common areas. This is the legal path for foreign condo ownership in Cambodia: foreigners may hold strata title to units above the ground floor, up to 70% of a building. Check that the building actually holds a strata-titled hard title at the land office — some projects market “foreign ownership” on paperwork that has never been registered.

Do you speak English? Worth asking early rather than assuming. English is common in Phnom Penh’s sales offices and rare in district land offices and commune halls — exactly the places where the details matter most. When the answer is no, that is your cue to bring your own translator, not to rely on whoever the other side offers.

How much is this? The all-purpose price question, for markets and property viewings alike. Expect the first answer to be an opening position, not a price — quoting in Khmer signals you are not a walk-in tourist, and the number often improves before you have said anything else.

An annual tax of 2% on the assessed value of undeveloped land — vacant plots held without construction or productive use. Enforcement has historically been patchy, but it exists precisely to discourage the speculative land-banking that Cambodian markets are known for. If your strategy is to buy and hold raw land, this is a recurring cost to model, and a policy lever the government can tighten at any time.

How much per square metre? Land and condos in Cambodia price per square metre, and forcing the conversation into $/m² is how you compare one deal against another instead of negotiating a lump sum in the dark. Know the going rate for the district before you visit, and quote the question in Khmer — it tells the seller you have done that homework.

A little bit / A small amount. Doubling the word tich (little) softens or emphasises it. Used constantly: “I speak Khmer tich tich” (ខ្ញុំនិយាយខ្មែរតិចតិច), “just a little more” (tich tich daoy), or “lower the price a little” (tich tich bonman?). Essential bargaining vocabulary.

Does this price include the title transfer fee? The 4% transfer tax and the associated fees are large enough to swing a negotiation, and who pays them is settled by agreement, not by law. Ask before you agree a headline price, and get the answer into the SPA — “included” said at a viewing has a way of becoming “excluded” at the land office.

Where are you going? A common Khmer greeting — not as nosy as it sounds in English. It’s the equivalent of “how are you?” in casual Cambodian conversation. The expected answer is vague: tov leng (ទៅលេង) = “going out,” tov tinh khi (ទៅទិញរបស់) = “going shopping,” or simply niyay tich tich (និយាយតិចតិច) = “just a little.”

A large-scale master-planned community — thousands of units across multiple phases, with schools, markets, and a commercial centre built in. Townships are the borey model at industrial scale, usually from the major conglomerates. The buyer’s question is phasing: early phases in a successful township appreciate as amenities arrive, but a township that stalls at phase two leaves owners in a half-built district where the promised infrastructure never lands.

The registration tax payable when ownership of titled property transfers — 4% of the higher of the declared price or the government’s assessed value. It is the largest single transaction cost in a Cambodian purchase, and who pays it (buyer, seller, or split) is a negotiating point that belongs in the SPA, not a handshake. Budget for it on hard-title transfers; soft-title deals often dodge it, which is part of why they stay soft.

How long does it take to complete? A hard-title transfer through the land office realistically takes four to twelve weeks; anyone promising days is either skipping steps or not transferring what you think. Asking the timeline question early surfaces how the seller intends to do the deal — and a wildly optimistic answer is a soft signal that the paperwork may be soft too.

A semi-detached villa sharing one wall with its mirror-image neighbour — the middle rung of the borey product ladder, between link houses and detached villas. Twin villas offer more frontage and garden than a link house at a meaningful discount to full detachment. Within a borey, their resale performance tracks the project’s overall health; there is no independent twin-villa market separate from the development they sit in.

Value-added tax at 10%, charged on the first sale of a new building by a developer and on construction services. On off-plan purchases, check whether the quoted price is VAT-inclusive — a “$150,000” unit that turns out to be plus-VAT is a $15,000 surprise. Resales between individuals generally fall outside VAT, which is one of several reasons the all-in cost of new and resale stock differs more than the sticker prices suggest.

A 10% tax on rental income paid to non-resident landlords, withheld at source by the tenant or managing agent. It comes straight off the top of the gross yield that marketing materials quote — a “7% yield” is 6.3% after withholding before you touch fees, vacancies, or maintenance. Factor it into every yield calculation, and confirm who is actually responsible for remitting it in your tenancy or management agreement.