If you are considering buying property in Batumi, this page is about a risk no brochure mentions: what happens when your rights, registered and unencumbered, are violated, and you turn to the authorities. If you are considering the Next Group in particular, read the Next-specific announcement as well as this one.

I am a foreign owner of two apartments in Batumi. On July 1, 2026, the building's management withheld elevator access to my home, on the 16th floor, to collect my signature on a general waiver of claims and a debt it determined itself, written in one of two falsified documents I never signed, despite coercion. On October 21, the waiver signature demand was dropped, but the debt enforcement still remains.

The full account, with the evidence, is in the Summary. This page is about the other half of the story: what the Georgian authorities did when I asked them to intervene.

What a registered title bought me

My titles are registered in the Public Registry with no encumbrance (16-11 and 16-12), and the developer's lawyer confirmed as much. The Law on Homeowners' Associations lists the elevators among the common property of the owners and gives every owner the right to use it (details). No one has disputed any of this. No one has enforced any of it either.

The police

On July 6, 2026, I went to file a criminal complaint. Five hours later I left with a handwritten, unsigned case number, no copy of what had been registered, and no way to check it. In between:

• The central station sent me away to a district division;
• My written complaint, prepared in advance with the evidence organized, was refused;
• I was told complaints are received only in Georgian, a language I do not speak, so my statement became an interrogation transcript typed by an officer;
• Officers said the matter was civil, that the police decide what is criminal, and that parts of my statement would be left out for that reason;
• When I asked for a reprinted draft to be translated again, it was refused, and a translator pressed me into a chair and told me to sign;
• Officers promised to have my elevator access restored the next day. Nothing was written down, and nothing happened.

The offices above the police

I then did what a foreigner is told to do and went up the chain. Every step is recorded, with registration numbers.

• The Public Defender registered my report on the police (6902/26), forwarded it to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and told me the Ministry had opened a departmental inquiry. I have no document from the Ministry, and nothing from either office since August 20.
• The Prosecutor's Office registered my complaint against the developer (01/13-94415) and assigned it to a prosecutor in Tbilisi, who forwarded it to the Batumi District Prosecutor, who forwarded it, on September 18, to the Batumi City Division of the police: the body whose 7th division had spent five hours telling me the matter was civil.
• My complaint about the police (01/13-98924) was forwarded to the Tbilisi Prosecutor's Office. I have heard nothing since.
• I have asked six times to be recognized as a victim, the status that lets a person follow an investigation. The request has been neither granted nor refused.

The scorecard: five registration numbers, six forwarding letters, no decision on any request, and no authority that has addressed the facts. The conduct I complained of continues, in the open, 129 days on.

I cannot tell from the outside whether this is incompetence, indifference or something worse. For an investor the distinction does not matter, because the result is the same: a registered, unencumbered title, a clear statute, and no one who will enforce either.

What this means for you

Jurisdictional security is not whether a title can be registered. It is whether anyone will act when a registered right is violated. My case shows that a private company can brazenly obstruct access to a home for over four months, in writing, while three state bodies pass files to one another.

Before you buy, ask, in writing:

• Whether the building is commissioned. Mine is not, and the developer charges service fees regardless;
• Whether you will be asked to sign a management or service contract after registration, and to see it before you pay anything;
• Whether the homeowners' association has a charter, a chairperson and minutes, and who sets the service fee;
• What happens to your elevator, meters or utilities if you dispute a charge. Owners in my building report that the chip system was used at another Next building before ours.

Keep every answer. Then assume that if an answer turns out to be false, the authorities will not help you in time, or at all.

One developer, or the local practice?

The Polish embassy in Tbilisi had published a warning for investors in Batumi, following a growing number of reports from Polish investors deceived by residential developers.

The following local developers did not answer a questionnaire sent to them with a 30-day deadline:

• The Orbi Group;
• The Alliance Group;
• The Gumbati Group;
• Archi;
• The ELT Group; and
• ONE Development.

Silence is not an admission: none of these companies owed me a reply. But the questions were plain ones about their own practice, and a buyer will want the answers before paying. The question in this section’s title remains open. I still welcome answers from these or any other developers in Batumi and will publish them here in full.