How we check what is on this site

A direct competitor describes its figures as “estimates synthesized from public market data using AI research”, and gives no sample size and no sources. That is the standard in this vertical. Here is ours instead.

1. Primary text, in Indonesian, or nothing

Every regulation this site relies on was obtained as the official PDF from the legal documentation service of the Indonesian Audit Board (JDIH BPK RI), converted to text and read in the original language. We did not work from English summaries, from law-firm client alerts or from other property sites, because that is how errors propagate: the regulation that most English-language Bali sites still cite for foreign home ownership, PP 103/2015, was revoked by article 103(b) of PP 18/2021 on 2 February 2021.

The instruments cited across this site are:

1. Law 5/1960 — Peraturan Dasar Pokok-Pokok Agraria, the Basic Agrarian Law. Articles 21, 26, 41, 42, 44, 45.
2. PP 18/2021 — Hak Pengelolaan, Hak Atas Tanah, Satuan Rumah Susun, dan Pendaftaran Tanah. Articles 22, 37, 49, 52, 67, 69, 70, 71, 103.
3. Permen ATR/BPN 18/2021 — Tata Cara Penetapan Hak Pengelolaan dan Hak Atas Tanah. Articles 111, 114, 158, 185, 186, 187, 188.
4. Law 1/2022 — Hubungan Keuangan antara Pemerintah Pusat dan Pemerintahan Daerah. Articles 41, 44, 46, 47.
5. PP 34/2016 — income tax on transfers of land and buildings. Article 2.
6. Perka BKPM 4/2021 — risk-based business licensing. Article 12.

Those six were the first. The site now cites more, and the full list — each instrument by its formal title, with its status and the articles used — is kept on the regulations page.

2. One file holds every number

Numbers that appear on more than one page are a reliable way to publish a contradiction. A UK reference site in this portfolio’s research shows a statutory cap of one figure in its page text and a different figure in the structured data on the same page, because the two were typed separately a year apart.

So no page here contains a typed number. Every figure lives in one file with its source and the year attached, and the pages import it. The lease calculator is the one place a number has to exist twice — once in Python for the build and once in JavaScript so it can run in your browser — and a script compares the two across a grid of cases on every build. If they ever disagree, the build fails rather than shipping.

3. What we will not publish

Three categories, deliberately:

Figures whose instrument we could not read. The minimum purchase price for a foreign buyer is the live example. Article 187(2) of Permen ATR/BPN 18/2021 delegates it to a Ministerial Decision; that decision is not in the database, so we have no text and print no figure.

Market numbers dressed as rules. Agency commission in Bali is commonly quoted between 2.5% and 5%, with 5% the figure most often cited. No Indonesian regulation sets it. Where it appears on this site it is labeled as market practice, and we do not give it a precision it has not earned.

Rankings, scores, ratings and recommendations. We have no basis for any of them. We do not inspect agencies, we do not audit them, and we are paid the same whichever one you speak to. A rating we invented would be worth exactly what it cost to produce.

4. What this site cannot do for you

It cannot tell you whether the certificate you have been sent is genuine, whether the person selling is entitled to sell, whether the land is zoned for what you intend, or whether the structure you have been offered is the right one for your circumstances. Those questions are answered by looking at documents for one specific parcel, which requires someone on the ground who is professionally responsible to you for the answer.

What it can do is tell you which questions those are, what the answers ought to look like, and which article of which regulation decides each one — so that you can tell the difference between an adviser who knows and one who is guessing.

5. Corrections

If something here is wrong, write to us through the enquiry form on any page with the page and the article number. We will correct it, and the page will say that it was corrected and when. We would rather be publicly wrong for a week than quietly wrong for a year.