Barbuda Ocean Club — Coco Point Casitas

Coco Point Casitas sits inside Discovery Land Company's private club on Barbuda, on the 164-acre point where Coco Point Lodge stood until Hurricane Irma destroyed it in 2017. The casita is a turnkey product — the developer builds it, so you are not running a construction project on an island where materials and trades route in from Antigua — and my record has it in progress, so the visuals are developer renderings rather than photographs of a standing house. It suits a family that will use the house for weeks at a time with children and guests. It suits poorly anyone who needs rental income to carry it, or who wants a passport out of the purchase.

What you actually own

My record for this casita is freehold, and freehold on Barbuda is not interchangeable with freehold across the channel on Antigua. Barbudans held the island in common from the end of slavery in 1834, and those communal rights were officially recognised in 2007. In February 2017 the government granted PLH, the entity behind this development, two separate 99-year leases over the project land; in June 2022 the Privy Council ruled against Barbudan communal land rights. Before anything is wired, I want your own lawyer to read the registered instrument itself — not a brochure line — plus any interest sitting above or beneath yours and its unexpired term, whether you can sell or transfer without the developer's or the club's consent, and whether membership is tied to ownership and what becomes of it on resale.

The honest cost of holding it

Foreign buyers in Antigua and Barbuda generally need a Non-Citizen Land Holding Licence, typically quoted at 5% of the property value, with processing running roughly three to six months. Buyer's stamp duty on a conveyance is 2.5%, and legal fees usually run 1% to 2%. At this price, 2.5% plus 5% is about US$517,500 to government before your lawyer's bill — and that licence timeline, not the money, is what most often moves a closing date. Confirm in writing whether the licence is triggered at all on a Barbuda interest, and at what rate.

The rest is unpublished. Ask early and in writing for the initiation fee and dues schedule, whether dues are capped or index-linked, the assessment history, and a live insurance quote — Barbuda is low, flat and exposed, and Irma flattened this specific site.