Every off-plan brochure leads with three numbers — 20/40/40, 10/50/40, 60/40 — and most buyers skim past them. They shouldn't: those numbers are the deal. Here is how to read a payment plan like an underwriter.

The first number is the booking payment, due when you sign the reservation form and sales purchase agreement. It is the developer's filter for serious buyers and, in most markets, the hardest money in the deal — walk away later and you will usually forfeit it.

The second number covers construction, and the detail that matters is the trigger, not the percentage. Instalments are either date-based (every six months, whatever happens on site) or milestone-based (10% at 20% structural completion, and so on). Milestone plans are safer for buyers: if the contractor slows, your cash slows with it. Date-based plans transfer schedule risk to you. The sales agreement — not the brochure — tells you which one you are signing.

The third number lands at handover, and it is why completion quarters matter. A 40% final payment on an AED 1.9 million apartment is AED 760,000 due in a specific quarter of a specific year. If you plan to mortgage that balance, start the approval six months before the stated handover, because valuations on new towers can only be done late.

Where your money sits between instalments matters as much as when it moves. In Dubai, payments on registered projects go into a project-specific escrow account supervised under Law 8 of 2007; the developer draws against certified construction progress. Abu Dhabi operates an equivalent regime. In Lisbon there is no statutory escrow: your 20% at the promissory contract (CPCV) is protected by contract law instead — on developer default, Portuguese law entitles you to double your deposit back. Different mechanics; same question to ask: what happens to my money if the crane stops?

A worked example from our own listings. Marasi Quay Residences in Business Bay: AED 1,900,000 at 20/40/40. AED 380,000 on booking; four instalments of AED 190,000 tied to structural milestones through 2026–2027; AED 760,000 at handover in Q4 2027. Add the 4% land department fee and Oqood registration at booking, and the true day-one cheque is about AED 459,000 — a number the brochure never prints.

Two final habits: read the delay clause, because compensation usually starts only six to twelve months after the anticipated date; and get the service charge estimate in writing. Handover day is when the payment plan ends and the running costs begin.