How we vet developers — and how to check them yourself
Buying a flat in your own city, you check the developer almost by reflex. You know the name, someone you know bought from them, and if something goes wrong you know which court to go to. Buy abroad and all of those reflexes stop working at once, while the sum involved goes up.
Below is exactly what we check before a developer reaches our platform. None of it is a secret, and you can apply the same checklist yourself, including to us.
Company records
We start with the most basic question: does the selling entity exist, and is it who it says it is.
We check the company's registration documents: who represents it, how long it has been trading, how it is structured. That sounds obvious, but in a cross-border transaction the obvious things are the ones nobody checks, because everyone assumes somebody else already did.
Reviews, and their limits
We look for whatever is publicly said about a developer: online, in the trade, among local firms.
It is worth being straight about what that is worth. Online reviews can be bought, and their absence means neither good nor bad, since a new company simply has no history. We treat them as a signal, never as proof. One specific complaint that recurs weighs more than a hundred general compliments.
Three references from previous buyers
We ask every developer for contact details of at least three people who have bought from them before.
It is a modest-looking requirement that filters more than anything else on this list. A developer who has sold dozens of units will find three such people in a quarter of an hour. A developer who will not share that contact has already answered the question, and in the most credible way available.
A conversation with someone who went through the whole process tells you things no brochure contains: whether deadlines held, what happened when a problem came up, what contact was like after the keys changed hands.
A webinar that stays online
Webinars are part of the Vesteri platform. The developer presents their projects, answers questions from participants, and the whole thing is recorded and published.
This is the strongest item on the list and the one that cannot be worked around. The reason is not that we ask especially hard questions. The participants ask them, often sharper than ours. The reason is what happens to the answers.
A developer who shades the truth in a private conversation risks one person's word against another's. The same developer shading the truth on a recording available to every future client leaves permanent evidence against themselves. For a company that intends to act honestly, that costs nothing. For one that does not, it is a risk rarely worth taking.
Which is why agreeing to the format is itself a signal. Developers who decline save us the work.
What this does not guarantee
No vetting process makes an investment safe. Ours does not either.
Checking documents will not predict financial trouble two years out. Three good references do not mean the fourth transaction will go the same way. A recording narrows the room for misleading you, but it does not replace a lawyer reading the contract you are about to sign.
Vetting moves risk down. It does not take it to zero, and anyone who says otherwise is not telling you the truth about the market they work in.
What you can check yourself
Whoever you buy through (including us):
- Ask for the company records and check that the entity on the contract is the one in the marketing material.
- Ask for three references and call them. Not for an opinion, but for the sequence of events: deadlines, problems, contact after handover.
- Ask for a recording or transcript of any conversation where specific commitments were made. If a claim is true, nobody has reason to refuse.
- Hire your own lawyer. A lawyer paid by the seller represents the seller, however friendly they are towards you.
The last point matters most and is skipped most often, because it costs money and seems unnecessary right up to the moment it stops seeming that way.
This article describes our vetting process and is provided for information only. It is not legal or investment advice and is not a guarantee of any investment. See our disclaimers.