Most property in Pakistan is sold on instalments, and most of the stories that end badly start with one. Not because instalments are wrong — they are how a salaried family can buy anything at all — but because the structure hands the seller the money first and the buyer the risk.
The eight questions, before the first payment
- Does the sum of every instalment equal the price? Add it up yourself. If the total exceeds the headline price, you are paying a markup for time, and you should know its size before you agree to it, not after.
- Is the full schedule issued at booking, with dates? All of it, in writing, on day one. A schedule that arrives instalment by instalment is a schedule that can be revised.
- What happens if I am late? Get the answer in writing before you need it. Surcharges, grace periods, the point at which the booking can be cancelled — all of it.
- What are the cancellation and refund terms? The most important question on this list and the one sellers are vaguest about. How much is deducted, at what stage, and how long does a refund take?
- Do I get a receipt for every payment, the same day? No exceptions. A payment without a receipt is a payment that can be disputed, and you will be the one disputing it.
- Can I verify a receipt independently? A reference number, a QR code, or a portal where you can see your own file. Otherwise your only record is a piece of paper you hope they also have.
- Can I pay extra, or pay early? And is the benefit credited to you, or quietly absorbed?
- What am I paying for right now? A booking, an allotment, a sale agreement? These are different instruments with different protections, and you should know which one your money buys today.
Where instalment buyers actually lose money
- Payments made to an individual rather than the company. Cash to a dealer who does not enter it. The buyer has a receipt from someone with no authority to issue one.
- A project that stops. Instalments keep being collected while construction does not move. The best early warning is a dated construction record — and its absence is itself the signal.
- Cancellation for a technical default. One late payment, after several years of paying, used as grounds to cancel and resell at a higher price. This is why question four matters more than it seems.
- Transfer refused at the end. Full payment made, then obstruction: fees that were never mentioned, documents that never come. Ask about the transfer process at the start, not at the finish.
The habit that protects you
Keep every receipt, and check each one appears against your file within a few days. The disputes that become unwinnable are the ones where money moved and nobody recorded it. Ten seconds after each payment is the cheapest insurance available to you.
And pay the company, through a traceable route, never an individual. If you are asked to hand cash to a person, ask for the company’s account details instead and watch the reaction.
How this works at Central Point
The full schedule is issued at booking. The instalments sum to the price with no markup for time — check it. Every payment generates a receipt with a QR code you can verify. Arrears are calculated against your file as a whole, so paying ahead protects you later.
Our cancellation and refund terms are not yet published, and we say so on the relevant page rather than leaving you to discover it. Until they are, ask us for them in writing before you pay a booking amount. That advice is against our own commercial interest and it is still the right advice.