The eleven checks to make before you pay a deposit
Title deed, mutation, dues clearance, approved plan — the paperwork that decides whether a sale completes, in the order a buyer should ask for it.
Start with the title deed
Ask for the title deed before anything else, and read the name on it against the passport of the person selling you the property. A power of attorney is fine, but it has to be current, notarised and specific to this sale — a general one signed four years ago for something else does not carry.
Check the plot number and the built-up area on the deed against the unit you actually stood in. Mismatches are usually clerical, but they take weeks to correct and they will hold up a transfer at the trustee office on the day you are trying to complete.
Then the money the property owes
A property carries its own debts. Ask the developer for a service charge statement and confirm there are no arrears; ask the seller's bank for a liability letter if there is a mortgage on it. Both are ordinary requests and a seller who resists either is telling you something.
If the building has a sinking fund, find out what is in it. A tower with a healthy reserve and a slightly higher annual charge is cheaper over ten years than one that levies for every lift replacement as it happens.
What a deposit actually commits you to
The deposit is normally ten per cent, held by the agent or the trustee, and it is not a reservation you can walk away from. Read the memorandum of understanding that goes with it — the clause you are looking for is the one that says what happens if the buyer defaults, and it is usually that you forfeit the lot.
Set the completion date in that document with the mortgage timeline in mind, not the seller's. Thirty days is comfortable for a cash purchase and tight for a financed one.