NRI Buying Property in Delhi: A Practical Rohini Guide From Abroad

For a Non-Resident Indian, buying property in Delhi from six thousand kilometres away feels like the one big decision you cannot afford to get wrong remotely. We understand that instinct. This guide sets out honestly how NRI buying property in Delhi actually works, what the rules permit, and where a named agent on the ground earns their fee. At Aggarwal Associates, a third-generation family real estate agency working the Rohini and North-West Delhi market since 1982, we have registered flats for families in Dubai, London, Toronto and Singapore who did not set foot in the country until the day they collected the keys.

First, a distinction that matters more than most portals admit. A property portal is a listings board. A broker often chases a single commission and disappears. An agency is something else: a firm with a real office and named people who stay accountable long after the deal closes. Our office sits on the Lower Ground floor at Pocket C-8, Plot No. 1, opposite Metro Pillar 394 in Sector 7, Rohini, and we are open Monday to Saturday, 10 AM to 7 PM, Sunday by appointment. You can walk in, or your cousin in Delhi can, and meet Vikas Aggarwal, Manoj Aggarwal, Ayush Gupta or Garvit Aggarwal in person. For a remote transaction, that face-to-face accountability is the whole point.

On the legal side, the rules are settled and NRI-friendly. Under FEMA and the RBI's general permission, an NRI or OCI cardholder can freely purchase residential and commercial property in India. There is only one hard restriction worth memorising: you cannot buy agricultural land, plantation property or a farmhouse. For a builder floor in Sector 9, a society flat in Sector 13, or a commercial showroom near the metro, there is no special approval to chase and no RBI clearance to file. That single fact removes most of the anxiety we hear on the first phone call about buying property in India from abroad.

Payment must run through banking channels, and a little planning here saves a lot of friction later. You fund the purchase from your NRE, NRO or FCNR account, or by normal inward remittance. No cash component, and no cheque drawn on a foreign account handed over at the table. We always ask NRI clients to have the right account operational before we finalise a property, because a clean money trail is exactly what protects your right to repatriate funds when you eventually sell. Get the paperwork right at the entry point and the exit takes care of itself.

Documents are the part where remote buyers stumble, so we prepare a checklist before you commit to anything. You will need a valid passport and, if you hold one, your OCI card; an overseas address proof; a PAN card, which is non-negotiable for registration and for the tax side; and recent photographs. If you are routing the deal through a representative in India, you will also need a properly drafted Power of Attorney. We line all of this up in parallel with the property search so nothing holds up the registry once you have chosen a home.

The Power of Attorney is the single most important instrument in a remote purchase, and it is worth getting right rather than fast. Most of our NRI clients cannot fly in for the registration at the Sub-Registrar's office, so they appoint a trusted family member in Delhi through a specific POA that names the exact property and the exact powers granted. Executed abroad, it must be signed before the Indian Embassy or Consulate, or notarised and then apostilled, and adjudicated in India within the required window. We do not draft your POA ourselves, that is your advocate's job, but we coordinate closely with them so the wording covers everything the Sub-Registrar will demand on the day.

This is where the live video walkthrough replaces the site visit you cannot make. When we shortlist a property, one of our agents goes to the flat with a phone and walks you through it live, on your schedule, whether that is 8 AM in Delhi or 11 PM in Melbourne. We show you what a photograph hides: the seepage stain on the ceiling, the width of the stairwell on a third-floor builder floor, how much afternoon light the drawing room actually gets, the walking distance to the Sector 11 or Rohini West metro station, and the state of the road outside. We point the camera where you tell us to. If something looks off, we say so, because we would rather lose a sale than sell you a problem you discover after registration.

Location judgement is where four decades in one market pays for itself. Rohini is not one place, it is twenty-nine sectors, each with its own character and price band. Sectors 7, 9 and 11 sit close to the Red Line and remain steady mid-market favourites for NRI end-users, with builder floors broadly in the ₹1.1 to ₹1.8 crore band depending on the street and the floor. Sectors 13 and 14 are quieter and family-oriented, with the school cluster around Bal Bharti and Rukmini Devi that matters if you plan to move children back. Sectors 24 and 25 skew newer and roomier. For NRI property investment in Rohini specifically, we steer clients toward the pockets with genuine rental demand rather than the ones that merely photograph well.

Two metro lines, the Red and the Yellow, serve Rohini, which is a large part of why rental demand here holds firm and resale stays liquid. That connectivity matters to the investor as much as the end-user. A well-chosen flat within a short walk of a metro station rents faster and to better tenants, and it sells faster when the time comes. When we advise on NRI property investment in Rohini, metro proximity, school access and the sector's resale history carry far more weight in our recommendation than any brochure claim about future appreciation.

Understand your costs before you make an offer, because the sticker price is not the total. Delhi levies stamp duty at 6% for male buyers and 4% for female buyers, plus a 1% registration fee, charged on the higher of the transaction value or the circle rate. Many NRI families register in the wife's name specifically to capture that two-percent saving, which on a ₹1.5 crore Rohini purchase is ₹3 lakh in hand. There is also TDS to account for, brokerage, and any society transfer charges. We put the full number in front of you upfront, in writing, so there are no surprises at the Sub-Registrar's counter.

On registration day, if you have granted POA, your representative appears at the Sub-Registrar's office with the sale deed, the identity documents, the photographs and the demand drafts, and completes the biometric registration on your behalf. Our agent attends alongside them to ensure the deed is executed cleanly, the mutation is initiated afterward, and you receive the registered documents. We handle a sequence we have run for years so your family member is not left decoding a government counter alone. For a genuine NRI real estate agent in Delhi, managing this last mile competently is the difference between a smooth close and a month of chasing.

Repatriation, taking your money back out, is the question every serious investor asks first, and rightly so. The RBI framework permits an NRI to repatriate the sale proceeds of up to two residential properties, subject to conditions: the property must have been acquired in line with FEMA rules, the purchase funds must have come through the proper banking channels or an NRE/FCNR account, and applicable taxes must be paid, typically evidenced by a chartered accountant's certificate in Form 15CB. This is precisely why we insist on a clean funding trail on day one. The discipline you accept while buying is what keeps your exit simple years later.

None of this replaces your own advocate or chartered accountant, and we would be wary of any agent who told you otherwise. What we provide is local presence and four decades of judgement that a remote buyer cannot supply from abroad: honest eyes on the property, a coordinated document timeline, a steady hand at the registry, and named directors who answer the phone after the sale as readily as before it. In forty-two years we have served over 16,264 families and hold a 5.0 rating across 14 Google reviews, and we would rather grow that record slowly and honestly than close a deal we did not believe in.

If you are an NRI weighing a purchase in Rohini or anywhere across North-West Delhi, Pitampura, Prashant Vihar or Shalimar Bagh, start with a conversation, not a listing. Call or WhatsApp us on +91 99992 84072, or send a relative to our Sector 7 office, and we will tell you plainly what your budget buys, which sectors fit your plan, and what the realistic timeline looks like from first video walkthrough to registered deed. Buying from abroad should feel considered and calm, and with the right agency on the ground, it can be.