Can I sell my unit before handover?

What am I actually selling before handover?

Until you receive the unit, what you hold is a contract with the developer: your right to the unit and your duty to pay for it. The unit is not yet registered in your name, and it does not yet exist as a finished home. Selling before handover therefore means handing your place in that contract to another buyer — a transfer, in the sense the developer's sales office uses the word — and not selling a registered asset. That single difference shapes everything that follows: the buyer takes on the payment schedule together with the unit.

Does the developer have to agree?

Yes. The contract is with the developer, and a transfer changes who stands opposite them, so the transfer is made with their consent and on their terms. Read the assignment clause in your contract before you speak to anyone: it states whether the developer agrees in advance, what is asked for that consent, and what the new buyer must produce. A sale agreed privately between two buyers does not move the unit until the developer records the new name.

Who finds the buyer, and at what price?

The buyer is yours to find, and the price is between you and them — it is not the price on the developer's list. What you owe the developer does not change with that private price: your outstanding instalments stay exactly as they are. Before you agree a number, work out what you have already paid and what remains, because the new buyer steps into the balance as well as into the unit.

What happens to the instalments I still owe?

They travel with the contract to the new buyer. Until the transfer is recorded you remain responsible for them, so the two things move together: the developer confirms the buyer, and the buyer takes over the schedule from the agreed point. Any instalment falling due between your agreement and the developer's recording is still yours. Put that cut-off date in writing.

What does the transfer cost?

A transfer fee — the developer's charge for approving and recording the change of buyer. The developer sets it and writes it into the contract and the compound's terms; it is not a figure the catalogue holds, and both the amount and who settles it are read from the contract. It is a separate payment from the price of the unit and from anything paid to the state.

What must the contract say about a transfer?

The clause that governs assignment: whether consent is required and when, the fee and who bears it, the minimum share of the price that must be paid before a transfer is allowed, and the date the new buyer takes over the instalments. If the clause is silent, ask the developer's sales team to put their terms in writing before you commit to a buyer.

What changes after handover?

Once you have received the unit and it is registered, you are no longer selling a place in a contract; you are selling a unit that exists and, where it is registered, a title that can be transferred. That is a different procedure on a different set of rules, and the assignment clause of the original contract no longer fixes its price.