TL; DR
- Before hiring a property manager, every NRI landlord should ask for a K-RERA registration number and verify it independently on rera.karnataka.gov.in rather than accepting a screenshot; this matters most if the firm also handles resale or purchase transactions for you down the line.
- Get the full fee structure in writing: full-service management typically runs 8 to 12% of monthly rent, with tenant placement usually billed separately at around one month's rent or 15 to 20% of annual rent.
- Ask specifically how maintenance and repair vendors are chosen and billed; a transparent manager shares direct vendor quotes, while one who won't discuss markups is worth pausing on.
- Confirm exactly how they'll manage TDS compliance, rent deposits into your NRO account, and repatriation paperwork, since getting this wrong creates a tax problem that lands on you, not them.
- Ask how often they physically inspect the property and what documentation you'll actually receive; quarterly visits with photo or video reports are the standard a professional manager should be offering.
- Get clarity upfront on what happens if the tenant defaults or a dispute escalates, and what the notice period is if you want to end the management contract, typically 1 to 3 months.
- None of these questions are adversarial; a property manager confident in their own operation will usually welcome them, since the answers are what actually build trust with an owner they'll never meet in person.
Introduction
Hiring a property manager is, for most NRI landlords, an act of trust made entirely on the strength of a phone call and a few reviews. You won't be in the room when they show the flat, collect the rent, or handle a plumbing complaint at 11pm, and that's precisely the point of hiring them. But it also means the vetting conversation before you sign is the only real leverage you have. Get it right, and you've found someone who genuinely runs your property the way you would. Get it wrong, and you find out eighteen months later, usually at the worst possible time.
We've written before about the legal mechanics of setting up a Power of Attorney and about a sensible inspection routine for a Bengaluru rental. This piece sits upstream of both: the five questions worth asking before you hand either of those responsibilities to someone else.
1. Are You (or Your Firm) K-RERA Registered, and Can I Verify That Myself?
Under Section 9 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, every real estate agent facilitating the sale or purchase of a unit in a RERA-registered project must hold a K-RERA registration number, valid for five years, that they're required to quote in every transaction. This is worth being precise about: it's a legal requirement tied to sale and purchase facilitation specifically, not a rental-management-specific mandate. A firm whose service is purely tenant placement and ongoing rent management for you isn't necessarily operating outside the law if they don't hold this registration.
That said, it's still a question worth asking, for two reasons. Many property management firms in Bengaluru are affiliated with, or double as, brokerages that also handle resale and purchase transactions, and if yours ever does either for you, the registration becomes directly relevant. And a firm that is registered, and can produce the number without hesitation, is demonstrating a baseline of traceability and accountability that's worth something even outside the strict legal requirement.
Don't take a claimed registration number at face value. Search it yourself on the Karnataka RERA portal's List of Agents page at rera.karnataka.gov.in, confirm the registration is current rather than expired, and check that the registered name matches the person or firm in front of you. An unregistered agent facilitating a sale in a registered project is liable for a penalty of ₹10,000 for every day the default continues, so a firm that's genuinely registered has every incentive to make that easy for you to check.
2. What Exactly Is Included in Your Fee, and What's Billed Separately?
Property management fees in Bengaluru follow a fairly consistent structure, but the headline percentage rarely tells the whole story.
| Fee component | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ongoing full-service management | 8 to 12% of monthly rent | Usually covers rent collection, basic tenant coordination, and routine issue handling |
| Tenant placement/acquisition | Around 1 month's rent flat, or 15 to 20% of annual rent | Often billed as a separate, one-time fee each time a new tenant is placed |
| Maintenance and repair coordination | Varies, ask directly | This is where hidden markups tend to hide if not discussed upfront |
Worked example: On a flat renting for ₹40,000 a month, an 8% management fee costs you ₹3,200 a month (₹38,400 a year), while a 12% fee costs ₹4,800 a month (₹57,600 a year), a real difference of nearly ₹20,000 annually for what might be a similar scope of service. Add a placement fee of one month's rent each time the flat changes hands, and the total cost of "full service" can vary substantially between firms quoting similar-sounding packages.
The question that matters most here isn't just "what's your percentage," it's "what does that percentage not cover." Ask specifically how maintenance vendors are selected and billed. A transparent property manager will share the vendor's direct quote and charge you that amount, or a clearly disclosed coordination fee on top. One who's vague about this, or insists all repairs go through their own unnamed contractor at a price you can't independently check, is worth pushing on, since undisclosed vendor markups are one of the more common ways property management arrangements quietly become more expensive than they first appeared.
3. How Will You Handle TDS, Rent Deposits, and Repatriation Paperwork?
This is the question that separates a manager who understands NRI-specific compliance from one who's only ever managed properties for resident landlords, and getting it wrong doesn't cost the property manager anything, it costs you, since the tax liability sits with you as the owner.
Ask specifically: how rent gets deposited (it should go into your NRO account, not a pooled account the manager controls), how they handle TDS deduction and filing when a tenant is required to withhold tax on your rental income, and how they support you (or your CA) when it comes time to repatriate funds, which now runs through Form 145 and Form 146, the forms that replaced the earlier Form 15CA and Form 15CB from April 2026. We've covered the fuller mechanics of NRO account rules, TDS thresholds, and the Power of Attorney arrangement that typically sits behind all of this in our guide on managing Power of Attorney for a Bengaluru rental property. A property manager who can speak to this fluently, rather than deferring everything to "your CA will handle it," is a genuinely useful signal of experience with NRI clients specifically.
4. How Often Will You Inspect the Property, and What Will I Actually See?
A property manager's core value, for an NRI owner, is being your eyes on the ground. So it's worth asking exactly how often that happens and what proof you get of it.
Quarterly inspections with photo or video reports sent directly to you are the standard service level worth expecting; anything less frequent starts to leave real gaps where unauthorised subletting, deferred maintenance, or property damage can go unnoticed for months. We've laid out a fuller inspection calendar and what to actually document at each visit in our guide on how often to inspect a rental property in Bengaluru, which is a useful benchmark to hold any property manager's proposal against.
Ask to see a sample report from another client (with identifying details removed) before you sign. A manager who has a genuine, structured reporting process will have one ready to show you. One who describes their reporting only in vague terms, "I'll keep you updated," without a concrete format, is telling you something about how this will actually work once you're a few months into the arrangement.
5. What Happens If the Tenant Defaults or a Dispute Escalates, and How Do I Exit This Contract?
Every tenancy runs smoothly until, occasionally, one doesn't, and this is the question that tells you whether your property manager is actually equipped to handle that day, not just the routine ones.
Ask what their process looks like if rent payment stops, if the tenant causes damage, or if a dispute over the security deposit or possession ends up in front of the Rent Authority under Karnataka's amended rent law. Do they handle this themselves, do they loop in a lawyer, and at what point do they escalate to you versus handling it independently? A vague answer here, "we'll figure it out if it happens," is a meaningfully worse sign than a manager who can walk you through their actual playbook, even if the playbook is simply knowing when to bring in legal help.
Equally important, and often skipped in the excitement of signing: what's the notice period if you want to end the arrangement? A typical, fair range is 1 to 3 months' notice on either side. A contract that locks you in for a year with no reasonable exit, or that's vague about handover of documents, keys and tenant records if you do leave, is a red flag regardless of how good the sales pitch was.
Conclusion
None of these five questions are designed to catch a property manager out. A firm confident in its own operation will answer all of them plainly, often before you finish asking. The value of asking isn't just the individual answers, it's what the pattern of answers tells you about how this relationship will actually run once you're thousands of kilometres away and something inevitably needs handling on short notice. Ask them before you sign, get the answers in writing where it matters (fees, inspection frequency, termination notice), and treat any hesitation as data, not an inconvenience to smooth over.
