Buying a New-Build Flat in London from Abroad: The Whole Process, Reservation to Completion
If you live outside the UK, you can buy a new-build flat in London in your own name. English law places no restriction on foreign nationals buying residential property, and ownership is separate from immigration status. What you cannot do is skip the stages: a reservation agreement and fee, legal checks by your own solicitor, exchange of contracts with a deposit that is usually 10% of the price, and completion, when the balance and Stamp Duty Land Tax are paid.
For a flat bought off-plan, those stages can stretch over years. The developer may ask for further payments while the building goes up, and the contract names a long-stop date after which you can end it and recover your deposits if the home is not finished. Most of the checking happens before exchange, while you can still change your mind.
Below we take the process in order, as it works in England in October 2026, with the money you pay at each point. Tax figures are those in force before the Autumn Budget of 28 October 2026, and anything announced but not yet law is labelled as such.
Who can buy, and what a purchase does not give you
Legal owners must be 18 or over, and in England and Wales at most four people can be registered as legal owners of one property, although a property can be held on trust for children. Once the purchase is registered, the buyers’ names and the price paid appear on the public register at HM Land Registry.
Buying through a company is a different route with its own duties. An overseas entity that buys UK land must first register on the Register of Overseas Entities at Companies House, identify its beneficial owners, obtain an Overseas Entity ID and file an update every year, and HM Land Registry will not register a purchase by an entity that has not done so. The registration fee was £250 as of February 2026. For a single flat the tax side of company ownership is usually unfavourable, which we explain in our guide to Stamp Duty for overseas buyers.
A flat in London does not come with a right to live in the UK. There is no visa or residence route based on buying property. The Tier 1 (Investor) visa closed to new applicants on 17 February 2022, and property investment never counted towards it in any case. If residence matters to you, speak to a regulated immigration adviser before you buy.
Step 1: reservation, the fee and the cooling-off period
Once a price is agreed, you sign a reservation agreement and pay a reservation fee. The developer takes the flat off the market for an agreed period and sets a timetable for exchange. Fees vary widely. They typically range from £10,000 to £50,000 depending on the value, and run far lower on cheaper homes. The only figure that matters is the one in your agreement.
Whether you can get the fee back depends on the code the developer is registered under. Developers registered under the New Homes Quality Code give a 14-day cooling-off period in which you can cancel and recover the fee. After that you can still cancel, but the developer may keep reasonable costs it has disclosed. Version 2 of the Code applies to homes reserved from 2 March 2026. Without that protection, a reservation agreement is usually binding, and walking away loses you the fee except in limited circumstances. Treat the fee as at risk once any cooling-off period ends, and ask which code the developer follows before you pay.
Exchange deadlines in reservation agreements are often short, a matter of weeks. Instruct your solicitor before you reserve, so that the clock does not start while you are still looking for one.
Step 2: your solicitor, the legal pack and the money checks
You need your own solicitor or licensed conveyancer. They carry out the due diligence, negotiate the contract, manage exchange and completion, file the Stamp Duty return and register you at the Land Registry. The developer’s solicitor sends a pack with the draft contract, the draft lease, title documents and replies to standard enquiries. Your solicitor raises further questions, runs searches and sends you a report on title.
The report should cover at least these points:
- the length of the lease and the ground rent, which on most new leases granted since 30 June 2022 should be a peppercorn, in effect zero;
- how the service charge is calculated and what the first year’s budget is;
- the specification you are buying, and how far the developer may vary the finished size, design and specification;
- any restrictions in the lease on letting, including short lets.
Expect detailed money checks. Under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, solicitors must verify your identity and your source of funds, and they may also ask about your source of wealth, meaning how you built your overall wealth. In practice that means months of bank statements showing how the money accumulated, plus documents that match your explanation, such as payslips or a sale agreement. Overseas funds and gifts take longer to verify. Start collecting documents the day you reserve.
The tenure itself deserves a careful read. Our guide to leasehold, freehold and share of freehold explains what a London lease gives you and what it does not.
Step 3: exchange of contracts and the 10% deposit
At exchange you become legally bound to buy. A developer usually asks for 10% of the price at this point, less the reservation fee already paid. Every question from Step 2 should be answered before you sign, because pulling out after exchange puts that deposit at stake.
If completion is far off, the contract may require further deposits, often in 6- or 12-month instalments of 5% or 10% of the price. In total an off-plan buyer may pay up to 30% before completion. The contract also states an anticipated completion date and a long-stop date: if the flat is not built by the long-stop date, you can end the contract and recover your deposits.
Ask your solicitor how your deposit is held, because the answer affects your exposure if the developer fails. New homes are normally sold with a 10-year warranty, and NHBC’s Buildmark policy covers loss of deposit between exchange and completion if the builder becomes insolvent. Other providers offer similar cover; check the limits in the policy itself. We go through warranties and deposit protection in more detail in our off-plan checklist.
Step 4: construction and the building-safety sign-off
Most London new-build towers count as higher-risk buildings under the Building Safety Act 2022: at least 18 metres or seven storeys tall, with at least two homes. Since 1 October 2023, construction of such a building cannot start without approval from the Building Safety Regulator. Once it is built, the regulator must issue a completion certificate and the building must be registered before anyone moves in, and occupying it earlier is a criminal offence.
For you as a buyer, completion therefore depends on a regulator’s sign-off as well as on the builder. Approvals at the earlier stage have run well past the 12-week statutory target. They averaged 25 weeks in early 2025, older cases had a median of 37 weeks by the end of that year, and times improved somewhat in 2026. Rely on the dates in your contract rather than on a sales brochure.
Step 5: notice to complete, snagging and completion
When the flat is ready, the developer serves notice to complete, usually giving 10 working days. You pay the balance of the price plus Stamp Duty Land Tax through your solicitor, and the flat is yours.
A pre-completion inspection, or snagging visit, is usual. A professional snagging survey costs around £300 to £600 depending on the size of the home. A new build does not usually need a full building survey.
If you are borrowing, timing matters. Mortgage offers typically expire three to six months after they are issued, so off-plan buyers usually arrange the loan close to completion, and the lender values the flat at that point. If the valuation comes in below the contract price, you fund the gap. Our guide to mortgages for non-UK residents covers what lenders ask for.
Stamp Duty is charged at the rates in force on the effective date, which for a new build is normally completion, not the date you reserved or exchanged. An off-plan buyer is therefore exposed to any rate change made before the keys are handed over.
What you pay, and when
The table sets out the payments of a typical off-plan purchase in the order they fall. Percentages are of the purchase price. The fees are typical averages or ranges, not quotes.
| Stage | Payment |
|---|---|
| Reservation | Reservation fee set by the developer (typically £10,000 to £50,000 depending on value) |
| Exchange | Usually 10% of the price, less the reservation fee |
| During construction | Possible stage payments of 5% or 10%, up to about 30% in total before completion |
| Before completion | Snagging survey, around £300 to £600 |
| Completion | Balance of the price plus Stamp Duty Land Tax |
| Across the purchase | Solicitor’s fees: average £1,509 including disbursements and VAT, with leasehold work typically about £300 more |
Typical disbursements include local authority searches at £250 to £450 and anti-money-laundering checks at £6 to £20. London firms that act for international buyers can charge more, so ask for a written quote.
As of October 2026, a non-UK resident who owns a home elsewhere pays Stamp Duty at the standard rates plus a 5% surcharge plus a 2% non-resident charge, applied to each slice of the price. Those are the rates in force before the Budget of 28 October 2026. The old Help to Buy scheme closed to applications on 31 October 2022, and the proposed “Your First Home” scheme is not open, and its rules do not yet say whether non-residents could use it.
Before you reserve: what to check
- Is the developer registered under the New Homes Quality Code, and what does the reservation agreement say about refunds after the cooling-off period?
- Have you instructed a solicitor, and have you started collecting source-of-funds documents?
- What are the exchange deadline, the stage payments, the anticipated completion date and the long-stop date?
- Which warranty covers the flat, and how is your deposit held between exchange and completion?
- Does the lease carry a peppercorn ground rent, and does it restrict letting?
- Have you worked out Stamp Duty at the current rates, and checked whether the Budget of 28 October 2026 changed them?
- If you need a mortgage, has a specialist broker confirmed that a lender will consider you, given where you live?
The London homes we work with are on our United Kingdom properties page, and the rest of this series is in the United Kingdom section.
