The Pre-Purchase Due Diligence Checklist for Cambodia
The specific checks that separate a defensible Cambodian property purchase from an expensive lesson — title, developer, structure, and exit.
By Research Cambodia · Updated
Most losses in Cambodian property are not caused by bad luck or a falling market. They are caused by a check that was skipped. This is the checklist we would run before committing capital — organised by the four places things actually go wrong: title, structure, counterparty, and exit.
This is general education, not advice on a specific transaction. Always engage independent legal counsel who represents you.
Don’t run it alone where it counts: our trusted partners list independent lawyers and buyer’s agents who do this for a living. To see these checks applied to real (anonymised) deals, read our deal reviews.
1. Title
The foundation. If the title is weak, nothing above it is safe.
- Confirm the title type. Hard title or strata title (nationally registered) is what you want. Treat soft title — registered only at the commune level — as a serious red flag for a foreign buyer.
- Verify the title at the Land Office, independently of the seller. Confirm the registered owner matches the person you are dealing with.
- Check for encumbrances — existing mortgages, liens, caveats, or disputes registered against the title.
- Match the physical property to the title — boundaries, area, and unit number. Overlapping and mismatched titles are a known problem.
2. Structure
How you will legally hold the asset.
- For a strata unit, confirm the building’s foreign-ownership quota has room (the 70% rule) and that the unit is above the ground floor.
- For landed property, decide deliberately between a registered long lease and a land-holding company — and have your own lawyer draft or review every control document. Reject informal nominee arrangements.
- Confirm the structure is registrable, not just contractual. A right you can register against the title is worth far more than a promise in a contract.
3. Counterparty
Who you are actually trusting.
- For off-plan / new developments: investigate the developer’s track record of completed and delivered projects, their solvency, and whether they are still operating in Cambodia. A pre-construction price is a loan to the developer.
- Use independent professionals. Your lawyer, and ideally your agent, should be paid by and accountable to you — not the seller or developer.
- Understand the payment schedule and escrow (or lack of it). Know exactly what protects your deposit if the project stalls.
4. Exit
How and to whom you will eventually sell.
- Who is the next buyer? A foreigner can only resell to another foreigner if quota allows, or to a local. Thin buyer pools mean slow exits.
- What are realistic transaction costs and taxes on the way out?
- Is there genuine secondary-market liquidity for this type of asset in this location, or only a primary market of new launches?
The one-line version
Buy a clearly registrable interest, in a building or structure with a defensible title, from a solvent and proven counterparty, in a location with a real secondary market. Get all four right and most Cambodian property risk falls away.
Print this, work top to bottom, and do not let enthusiasm — yours or anyone else’s — skip a line.
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