The eligibility rules for a non-resident buying a home in India are broad and have held steady for years. Legally the purchase is straightforward; procedurally it is fiddly, and the mechanics are what catch people out — which account the money leaves from, who deducts tax and at what rate, what a power of attorney has to say and where it has to be stamped, and what may be sent back out at the end.

What follows is the framework as far as we could verify it, sources named, and pitched deliberately on the conservative side. Cross-border property and tax rules interact with the law of your country of residence and with any tax treaty between it and India. Take advice from a chartered accountant and an advocate before you transact. None of it is legal or tax advice.

Who the Rules Apply To

Two categories are drawn apart by Indian foreign exchange law: the Non-Resident Indian — an Indian citizen living outside India — and the Overseas Citizen of India, a foreign national holding an OCI card. For the purpose of acquiring residential property, the current framework treats the two substantially alike. Someone who is neither, and who does not reside in India, occupies a different and far more restricted position.

FEMA determines residential status for foreign exchange purposes, and that is not the same test as the one applied for income tax. Within a single year you can be resident for one and not for the other. Establish both before you plan a transaction.

What You May and May Not Buy

Residential and commercial property is open to an NRI or OCI without any RBI approval: the rule is that they may acquire immovable property in India other than agricultural land, a farm house or plantation property. Those three excluded categories are prohibited outright, and no general permission exists under which they can be bought.

Purchase is not the only route in. Property may come by gift from a person resident in India, or from an NRI or OCI who is a relative as the Companies Act, 2013 defines the term, and it may come by inheritance. There is a joint route as well: a person resident outside India who is the spouse of an NRI or OCI may acquire one residential property jointly with that spouse, subject to conditions.

Buying is uncapped — an NRI or OCI may hold any number of residential or commercial properties. The limits that do exist attach to repatriation, a separate matter taken up below and one frequently mistaken for a restriction on purchase.

How the Money Must Move

Only two sources are permitted, and both run through normal banking channels — an inward remittance from abroad, or funds already held in an NRE, NRO or FCNR(B) account maintained with a bank in India. Foreign currency notes will not do; nor will a traveller's cheque; nor will any account outside that permitted set.

The account you pay from will matter years afterwards. Broadly, money brought in from abroad or passed through an NRE or FCNR(B) account counts as foreign-exchange-sourced, and it is that source which governs how freely the proceeds of an eventual sale can leave the country; rupee funds sitting in an NRO account take the tighter repatriation route. Keep the remittance advices, foreign inward remittance certificates and account statements for every payment. When you come to sell, your bank will want the original source of funds evidenced, and reconstructing that after the event is painful.

TDS When You Buy

On a property purchase the obligation to deduct tax at source falls on the buyer rather than the seller, and it binds you exactly as it binds a resident buyer.

Buying from a resident seller

Section 194-IA of the Income-tax Act governs the resident-seller case where the consideration comes to ₹50 lakh or more: the buyer deducts 1%, deposits it against the seller's PAN and files the prescribed challan-cum-statement. Buying from a developer, this is the ordinary case. On a villa in the five-to-seven-crore band, 1% is a large sum of money, and it must come out of the payment rather than be paid on top of it.

Buying from a non-resident seller

A non-resident seller takes the transaction out of Section 194-IA altogether and into Section 195, where the rate follows the nature of the gain rather than a flat 1% of consideration. Where the property has been held more than 24 months, the long-term capital gains rate for transfers on or after 23 July 2024 is 12.5% without indexation, plus surcharge and cess. Deducting under Section 195 also means the buyer must hold a TAN. Where the statutory deduction would exceed the seller's actual liability, the seller may apply for a lower-deduction certificate under Form 13 — and as buyer you should deduct at the certified rate only once you have seen the certificate itself.

This is worth getting right first time. A TDS failure is the buyer's liability, and it tends to surface at the worst possible moment — when you come to sell.

Power of Attorney

Being present for every stage is not realistic for most non-resident buyers, so the usual answer is a power of attorney in favour of someone in India. Three practical points follow.

To begin with, a POA executed abroad generally has to be notarised and then legalised before it can be used in India — by apostille where the country is a party to the Hague Convention, and by consular attestation at an Indian mission where it is not. Next, it has to be stamped in India under the applicable stamp law, and the clock runs from the date it is received in India, so there are time limits to meet. Most important of all is the scope, which must be drafted precisely to what you need — a specific power to execute and present a sale deed, take possession and deal with a named property, rather than a broad general power.

Let the advocate handling your purchase draft the POA in India, and confirm what the sub-registrar's office requires before it is executed. Requirements vary from office to office, and a defective POA comes to light at the registration counter.

Repatriation

The rules bite hardest at repatriation, which is why it repays understanding before the purchase rather than after it.

Nothing goes abroad directly. Proceeds from the sale of Indian property have to be credited first to an NRO account, and from there the RBI framework permits remittance of up to USD 1 million per financial year, counted across all NRO remittances in that year, after applicable taxes and subject to the prescribed certification. A more favourable route exists for the proceeds of residential property originally acquired with foreign exchange remitted into India, though it covers only a limited number of properties.

State the consequence plainly at this price level. Sell a single villa in the five-to-seven-crore band in one transaction and the proceeds may well exceed what can be remitted in a single financial year through the NRO route, which means repatriation has to be staged across more than one year. If your plan turns on getting the whole amount out quickly, have a chartered accountant model it before you commit rather than afterwards.

Home Loans and Rental Income

Lending is available: Indian banks and housing finance companies do fund residential property for NRIs and OCIs, though usually over shorter tenures and against more documentation. Repayment has to run through the permitted channels — inward remittance, or a debit to an NRE, NRO or FCNR(B) account.

Rent earned on Indian property is taxable in India and goes into an NRO account, and from there it can be repatriated after tax within that same annual limit.

If the Project Is Pre-Launch

A further caution belongs here for any non-resident looking at a project not yet registered with the state regulator, which Nambiar's Beverly Green currently is not. Registration is the mechanism that hands a buyer a defined counterparty, defined areas and defined timelines — and enforcing rights from abroad is slower and harder than enforcing them from Bengaluru. Before money moves, read our guide to what to check before buying a pre-launch project along with the project's current K-RERA status, and verify the position independently at rera.karnataka.gov.in.

The Nambiar's Beverly Green price page carries pricing and the cost stack, and the rest of these guides are indexed on the Nambiar's Beverly Green blog.

Treat all of the above as general information. Both the foreign exchange rules and the tax rules move over time, and whether and how they apply to you turns on your circumstances and on where you are resident. Take professional advice.