Monday, 20 August 2007

Nominee / name giver - the biggest Bali villa con

The Totally Unlawful Nominee Agreement Con

Most villa sales companies use the unlawful nominee agreement con to get you to "invest" in a Bali villa where they earn a nice big fat commission for lying to you and the chance to defraud you out of every penny you take to Bali.

Bali real estate companies advertise "freehold" land and / or villas to foreigners on the basis the freehold is held by a "nominee" or "name giver"; basically you will be taken on a ride which will then remove all the money from your bank account and leave you with no legals rights or redress at all.

These foreign expatriate crooks who pose as ethical real estate agents tell you this is a proven and legal method, when it is not. Basically a "nominee" or "name giver" agreement is where you pay for everything but the land and villa goes in an Indonesian's name (they own the land and villa) and you get a worthless piece of paper.

The piece of paper is an agreement from the "nominee" / "name giver" is an agreement to give you full use and access rights to the villa and land. The trouble is, this is a contrived and deliberate circumvention of clearly defined Indonesian laws governing foreign ownership and rights to use land / villas; that's right, nominee / name giver contracts are totally unlawful and are not worth the paper they are written on.

Although the corrupt Indonesian authorities (Transparency International ranks them as one of the most corrupt in the world) know this goes on and have not done anything about it yet, they can easily nullify each and every nominee / name-giver agreement just by enforcing existing laws. The only realistic legal way for a foreigner to control a villa in Bali is described here: ABN Method

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