How to Verify a Georgian Developer Yourself

You do not have to take anyone's word for it. Not the sales manager's, not a Telegram channel's, and not ours.

Most of what determines whether a Georgian developer is what it claims to be sits in two public registries, and you can look at both from your laptop, in another country, before you ever speak to anyone. This guide is the sequence we run before a project reaches our portfolio. We have written it so that you can repeat every step yourself, and check our work while you are at it.

What you can check without asking anyone's permission

Georgia keeps two registries that matter to a property buyer, both maintained by the National Agency of Public Registry under the Ministry of Justice, at napr.gov.ge:

• The Register of Entrepreneurs and Non-Entrepreneurial (Non-Commercial) Legal Entities — who the company is.
• The Register of Rights to Immovable Property — who owns the land, and what is registered against it.

Both are public. You do not need to be a party to the transaction, you do not need the seller's consent, and you do not need to be in Georgia. An extract is ordered online and delivered as a PDF.

Cost and language. The fee depends on how quickly you want the document — roughly 13 to 50 GEL, with the tariff set by government decree, so confirm the current figure when you order. Extracts are issued in Georgian by default; an English version is available for an additional fee. Order the English one if you plan to show it to a bank, a lawyer or an accountant outside Georgia.

Step 1 — Look up the developer's legal entity

Start with the company, not the building.

An extract from the Register of Entrepreneurs gives you the legal name, the identification number, the legal form, the registration date, the current status, the registered address, the director, and the partners.

Four things to read carefully:

The registration date against the claimed track record. A company registered fourteen months ago has not spent a decade delivering buildings. The people behind it may well have — through earlier entities. That is a reasonable answer, and it is checkable: ask which companies those were, and look them up too.

The status. A company can be active, in liquidation, or in insolvency proceedings. This is the single fastest check on this page and it takes under a minute.

The director and partners. You are looking at names, not a brand. Note them down — you will use them again in Step 4.

Whether the brand is a company at all. Marketing names are not legal persons. The entity on your contract is the one with obligations to you, and it may not be the name on the billboard. Ask which registered entity you will be signing with, then pull that entity.

Step 2 — Look up the land the project stands on

Every plot in Georgia has a cadastral code. With it, you can pull an extract from the Register of Rights to Immovable Property showing the registered owner, the plot area, its designated use, and every encumbrance registered against it — mortgages, seizures, leases, and other third-party rights.

Ask for the cadastral code early. It is not confidential information, and any project that is genuinely being built has one.

Three things to look for:

Who actually owns the plot. Write the exact entity name down. You need it for Step 3.

What is registered against it. A mortgage on a construction site is standard practice: it is how banks finance the build. It is not, in itself, a reason to walk away. What matters is whether the contract sets out in writing how your unit is released from that mortgage at handover, and who is responsible for making that happen. Ask for that clause specifically. A seizure or a court restriction is a different matter and needs a full explanation from a lawyer before anything else happens.

The designated use of the plot. It should be consistent with a residential or mixed-use building of the type being sold to you.

Step 3 — Compare the two extracts

This is the step almost nobody takes, and it is the one that tells you the most.

Check that the entity you will sign a contract with is either the same entity that owns the land, or is provably connected to it.

Registering a separate entity per project is normal practice and frequently sound structuring. What is not normal is a chain with no documentation behind it. If the connection is real, it exists on paper: a purchase contract for the plot, a development agreement, a group ownership structure. Ask for the document that connects them.

What you want to line up:

If these are three different names and nobody can produce a document linking them, you have found something worth pausing over, and it is worth paying a Georgian lawyer for an hour of their time before you go further.

Step 4 — Check the delivery record in the registry, not on the website

A completed-projects page proves nothing. The registry does.

Ask for the cadastral codes of two or three buildings the developer says it has delivered, and pull extracts on those.

What you are looking for: apartments registered to individual private owners. That is the practical evidence that the building was completed, handed over, and that titles actually transferred to buyers — which is the outcome you are buying.

Compare dates. Look at when units were registered against the delivery date the developer originally advertised for that project. A single delayed building tells you relatively little; three in a row tells you how this company operates under pressure.

Watch for a change of entity. If earlier projects were built by different companies, that is fine on its own — but you want the directors or partners from Step 1 to appear in those companies too. If none of the names overlap, the track record being described to you is not this developer's.

Step 5 — What only shows up in person

Some things are not in any registry.

The site itself. Compare what is physically standing against the construction stage you have been told about. Photograph it with the date visible, and go back a month later. Progress between two photographs is harder to argue with than a schedule.

Which banks lend on it. Ask which Georgian banks finance buyers in this project. Bank credit committees run their own review of the developer and the title, and they are not doing it as a favour to anyone. A project no bank will touch is worth asking about.

A building they already delivered. Visit one. Look at the lobby, the lifts, the parking, the common areas three years in. Talk to whoever is at the entrance. Ask residents how the service company handles problems — you will be dealing with the same people.

How they answer an uncomfortable question. Ask directly what happens if the building is late, and ask for the answer in writing. The quality of that answer is information.

Signals that need an explanation

None of these are verdicts on their own. Each one should get a clear answer, in writing, before you pay anything.

A construction permit that exists but cannot be shown. Request a copy and have a Georgian lawyer check it against what is being sold to you — the number of floors, the use of the building, the conditions attached. A developer who states that a permit exists and then declines to provide it is the clearest signal on this list.

The cadastral code is not provided. There is no legitimate reason to withhold it from a serious buyer.

The contracting entity is not the landowner, and nobody can produce the document linking them.

Urgency around a price. A price that is valid until Friday is a sales technique, not a market condition.

Payment routed to a personal account, or to a company in a third country that is not named in your contract.

A track record described entirely in brand terms, with no entity name you can look up.

A handover date that is vaguer in the contract than in the brochure. The contract is the version that counts.

No written answer about delay. What compensates you, and from when.

What we check, and what you can check with us

Every project on this site has been through the sequence above before it appeared here — entity, land, the link between them, delivery record, and the site itself. We keep the extracts, and we will show you ours.

The more useful offer is this one: send us a cadastral code, and we will pull the extract and read it with you — line by line, including the encumbrances section — whether or not the property is one of ours. If the answer is that you should walk away, that is the answer you will get.

Frequently asked questions

Can I order an extract if I am not a party to the transaction? Yes. Both registries are public and extracts are issued to third parties. You do not need the seller's consent or knowledge.

How much does an extract cost? Between roughly 13 and 50 GEL, depending on how quickly you need it. Tariffs are set by government decree, so check the current figure at the time you order.

Will the extract be in English? Extracts are issued in Georgian by default. An English version is available for an additional fee. Order it if the document is going to a bank, lawyer or accountant outside Georgia.

I do not have the cadastral code. Where do I get it? From the developer or the seller. It is not confidential, and a reluctance to provide it is itself worth noting.

Is a mortgage registered on the plot a reason to walk away? No. Construction is financed against the land — that is the standard arrangement. What matters is that your contract states how and when your unit is released from that mortgage, and who is responsible for it. Ask to see that clause.

Can I do all of this without flying to Georgia? Steps 1 to 4 are entirely remote. Step 5 needs someone on the ground — that can be a lawyer, a surveyor, or us.

If you are weighing up a specific project and want a second pair of eyes on the paperwork, send us the cadastral code and the name of the contracting entity. We will tell you what the registry says.