We list development assets for sale. So treat this as the sell side telling you what a serious buyer should demand — including from us. If a seller cannot answer these twelve questions with documents rather than adjectives, you have your answer.
Title and land
1. Who owns the land today, and can you show me the chain? Not a summary — the registry extract, the chain of ownership and any encumbrances. In several Latin American jurisdictions historical title irregularities are the single most common deal-killer, and they surface late if nobody asks early.
2. Is the boundary surveyed, and does the survey match the registry? Discrepancies between the plan being marketed and the parcel actually registered are ordinary, not sinister — but they change the acreage you are buying.
3. What is the environmental status of the land itself? Protected forest, mangrove, wetland, coastal setback, archaeological designation. On the Colombian Caribbean and in the Galápagos this is not a formality; it defines what can be built. Ask for the ecological assessment, and read it.
Permitting
4. What exactly is permitted — and what is merely applied for? Insist on the distinction in writing. "Fully permitted" can mean anything from a master plan approval to construction licences in hand. Get the list of consents, their conditions, their expiry dates and what remains outstanding.
5. Do the permits transfer with the sale? Some consents attach to the land, others to the applicant. If they attach to the seller's entity, you are buying the entity, and that is a different diligence exercise with different liabilities.
6. What has to be built by when to keep the consents alive? Entitlements often carry commencement deadlines. A permitted site with a nine-month commencement clock is a different asset from one with five years.
The operator
7. Who will actually build and run this, and what have they finished before? Not "worked on" — finished, in that country, at that scale. Ask for the two projects that went badly and what happened. An operator who cannot name one is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.
8. What is the brand relationship, precisely? A named designer, a golf brand, a hotel flag — each may be a signed licence, a term sheet, or a conversation. All three get described the same way in marketing material. Ask which it is and read the agreement.
Money
9. Show me the capital stack and where I sit in it. Equity, debt, pre-sales, seller financing, who has priority, and what happens on a capital call you decline. Dilution mechanics matter more than headline return.
10. What currency is everything in? Land bought in local currency, construction priced partly in dollars, revenue earned in dollars from international guests but in local currency from domestic ones — a resort can be a very good project and a very bad currency position simultaneously. Model it explicitly.
11. What does the downside case look like? Ask for the seller's own downside model: absorption 40% slower, construction 25% over, an exit two years late. If the only model you are shown goes up and to the right, build the downside yourself before you travel.
Exit and governance
12. Who buys this from me, and how long does that take? Name the buyer type: a regional operator, an international flag, a local family, a listed vehicle. Then ask what comparable transactions actually cleared at, and how long they took from decision to cash. An exit that exists only as "sell to an institution eventually" is not an exit.
The governance question underneath all twelve: if you and the sponsor disagree in year three, what does the document say happens? Deadlock provisions, buy-sell mechanics and information rights are cheap to negotiate before closing and impossible after.
What good looks like
A well-prepared seller has all of this in a data room before you ask, flags the weak points themselves, and can tell you which of the twelve is the genuine risk in this specific deal. Every project has one. A seller who claims otherwise has either not looked or is hoping you will not.
Our own listings — Mar de Indias, Hotel Paradiso and Hotel Delano — each have a full offering memorandum released under a mutual confidentiality agreement. Bring the list. We would rather answer twelve hard questions than close with a buyer who did not ask them.