Selling an off-plan unit before delivery in Egypt: assignment (tanazul), transfer fees and your options

How selling before delivery works

Until handover, you don't own a finished home: you hold a contract with the developer, and you're part-way through paying for it. Selling that contract is called an assignment, or tanazul. The buyer steps into your place in the contract, and the developer records the change.

So the developer is a third party to every sale. Its contract decides whether you can assign, when, on what conditions and for what fee. Read the assignment or transfer clause before you do anything else.

How the money usually works

In a typical assignment:

• The buyer pays you for what you've already paid the developer, plus or minus the difference between your contract price and today's market value.
• The buyer takes over the remaining instalments and pays the developer directly from the transfer onward. That's how assignments usually work, but confirm it in writing with the developer, including the exact schedule the buyer inherits.
• You pay the developer's transfer fee, unless you agree otherwise with the buyer.
• You owe the 2.5% disposal tax on the sale, within 60 days. Ask your accountant which value the Tax Authority will apply to an assignment; the calculator below uses the full price, which is the cautious figure. See our guide to taxes and fees when you sell.

The calculator below works out what you keep after the transfer fee, tax and commission.

What developers usually require

Every developer sets its own rules, contract by contract. Ask the developer's customer service, in writing, for:

• Whether assignment is allowed now. Some developers block transfers during certain periods, for example while they're still selling the same phase.
• The minimum paid before they'll approve a transfer, if any.
• The transfer fee and how it's calculated.
• That your account is up to date. Overdue instalments usually have to be cleared first.
• The documents and steps: usually your ID and the buyer's, the original contract, the payment receipts, and a transfer request signed by both of you at the developer's office.

Transfer fees: what to expect

• A September 2026 study of more than 40 developer contracts by an Egyptian law firm found transfer fees of 1% to 5% of the unit value.
• Lawyers and resale platforms report 5% to 10% as common in the market, and up to 15% in some contracts.
• Lawyers argue that percentage fees may conflict with Article 15 of the Consumer Protection Law (Law 181 of 2018), which voids clauses giving the seller a share of a later resale. Until that's settled, the fee in your contract is what you'll be asked to pay.

On a EGP 5 million unit, 1% is EGP 50,000 and 10% is EGP 500,000, so the fee alone can decide whether selling makes sense.

Selling versus cancelling

If you can't keep paying, you have two ways out: cancel the contract with the developer, or sell it.

• Cancelling is usually expensive. The same 2026 study found that the share of the price developers keep when a buyer cancels has risen from 10% to 15%, 20% and up to 30% in some contracts. Non-refundable booking amounts reached EGP 250,000.
• Selling usually costs less, even at a discount, because you recover what you paid. On Aqar Exit, a platform for selling off-plan contracts, sellers wanting a fast exit were often willing to list 25% to 35% below current market prices for comparable units, according to the platform. Its first month's data showed about half the sellers had paid around 27% of the unit's value, and about one in five had overdue instalments.

If the developer is late

If you're selling because handover is delayed, know your position first. Under Decision 2184 of 2022, which regulates off-plan sales, a developer gets a 12-month grace period after the contractual delivery date. Beyond 12 months your instalments are deferred, and beyond 24 months you can choose to continue or ask for a refund. In the contracts the 2026 study reviewed, delay compensation was capped at 2% of the price. A buyer will price the delay in, so it may be worth weighing these rights against a discounted sale.

Step by step

1. Read your contract: the assignment clause, the transfer fee and the cancellation terms.
2. Ask the developer in writing for its conditions, the fee and your account statement.
3. Bring your payments up to date if you can.
4. Price it: compare the developer's current price for similar units with what's on the resale market. Our guide on how to price your property helps.
5. List it. Say clearly that it's an assignment, the delivery date, the amount paid and the remaining schedule. Buyers filter for this. You can list your property on Feinh, and we check it with you and the developer's records before it goes live.
6. Agree the deal in writing with the buyer, with a deposit agreement. See our guide to the arboun and closing safely.
7. Complete the transfer at the developer's office, with both parties present, and get written confirmation that the contract is now in the buyer's name.
8. Get paid through a bank, against the developer's transfer confirmation, and pay the disposal tax within 60 days.

Never sell an off-plan unit by power of attorney instead of a formal transfer. For state-allocated units in new cities, the New Urban Communities Authority has treated sales by power of attorney as a breach of allocation terms, which can put the unit at risk.