Mauritius Real Estate Scams: What Foreign Buyers Need to Know

Mauritius has a structured, legally grounded property market and its foreign-buyer schemes have operated for over two decades. But structure does not equal safety, and the market has produced documented cases of foreign buyers losing deposits, receiving incomplete properties, or purchasing outside frameworks that gave them no legal protection. Understanding the specific risk patterns is more useful than a generic caution about due diligence.

Pattern 1: Properties Sold Outside Approved Schemes

The Non-Citizens (Property Restriction) Act 1975 makes it an offence for a non-citizen to acquire property in Mauritius without prior authorisation. Authorisation flows through the EDB-approved schemes: IRS, RES, PDS, Smart City, and the G+2 framework. A property sold to a foreigner outside those frameworks is, in the EDB's own language, potentially void.

The most common version of this risk is a foreign buyer being sold a property by an individual owner or small developer who does not hold an approved scheme certificate. This can happen through private listings, informal introductions, or via agents who either do not know or do not disclose the legal constraints. The purchase may proceed to notarisation, but because the development is not EDB-approved, the transfer may be challenged or reversed.

Before the Finance Act 2025, one semi-legitimate grey area existed: non-citizens holding a valid Mauritian residence permit could buy outside the schemes at over USD 500,000. That route was abolished. It no longer exists. Any agent or developer presenting an outside-scheme purchase as a valid option for a non-citizen should be treated as unreliable.

Verification is straightforward. The EDB publishes its list of approved developments at edbmauritius.org. Cross-referencing any proposed development against that list takes minutes. If the development does not appear, it is not approved for foreign purchase.

Pattern 2: Off-Plan (VEFA) Completion Risk

The majority of foreign property purchases in Mauritius involve off-plan transactions under the French legal framework of VEFA (Vente en État Futur d'Achèvement, or sale in future state of completion). VEFA is legally structured and provides substantial buyer protections when properly executed. It also concentrates all delivery risk on the developer's solvency and execution capacity over a multi-year construction period.

The protections in a properly executed VEFA contract include:

- A notarised contract with detailed project specifications, payment milestones, and a legally binding delivery date

- A GFA (Garantie Financière d'Achèvement), a completion guarantee issued by a licensed bank or insurance company, which obligates the guarantor to fund project completion if the developer defaults

- A staggered payment schedule tied to verified construction milestones, not to the developer's requests

- Withholding of the final 5 percent of the purchase price until the buyer accepts the property at delivery

The protections break down when buyers pay deposits or instalments before a notarised VEFA contract is in place, when the GFA is not obtained or the buyer does not verify that it exists, or when the developer operates with a funding model that is structurally unable to absorb delays.

The Evaco receivership, announced on 28 May 2026, is the most significant documented case of VEFA delivery failure for foreign buyers in the Mauritius market. Evaco was founded in 2002 and for over two decades built and sold luxury IRS and PDS projects in northern Mauritius, generating Rs 12 billion in sales. Its final project, Cap Marina in Cap-Malheureux, was a PDS canal-front development of over 300 units sold predominantly to South African and French buyers. More than 70 percent of units had been sold off-plan under VEFA arrangements.

Delivery problems began appearing in 2024. Construction slowed as a structural mismatch emerged between presale revenue, rising construction costs, and the developer's debt obligations. Regulatory processing times for title deed approvals had stretched from approximately one month to six months, disrupting cash flow projections. By June 2024, the group's consolidated total debt had reached MUR 2.94 billion against a tangible net worth of MUR 628 million. SBM Bank declined a request for an additional Rs 700 million facility. The eventual trigger was a Rs 39 million recall notice from Silver Bank, itself under receivership, on 25 May 2026. Three days later, SBM placed Evaco under receivership.

SBM holds both the debt and the GFA obligation for Cap Marina, with potential exposure of approximately Rs 2 billion if it must fund project completion. Foreign buyers in the PDS and IRS schemes have legal recourse through the GFA mechanism. The outcome for Cap Marina buyers is, as of June 2026, unresolved.

The Evaco case is not unique in its structure. Multiple developers on the island use the same model: sell off-plan, use presales and bond issuances to fund construction, rely on regulatory approvals that assume predictable timelines. When any of those assumptions fail together, the model collapses quickly.

Pattern 3: Deposit Payments Before a Notarised Contract

Article 1601-3 of the Mauritius Civil Code (derived from French civil law) prohibits any party from requesting payment or deposit from a VEFA buyer before a notarised contract is signed. The prohibition exists precisely because developers have historically sought to lock in buyers before legally committing to project specifications or delivery dates.

Violations of this rule are not uncommon in practice, particularly at the reservation stage. A buyer may be asked to pay a holding deposit (sometimes called a booking fee) to secure a unit before the VEFA contract is formalised. This deposit, if paid without a notarised contract in place, gives the buyer very limited legal recourse if the developer subsequently delays, changes specifications, or fails to complete.