Buying a property by installments without determining the purchase price
2-12-2009 | IslamWeb
Question:
Our community need to purchase a property for Mesjed and community centre. We found one property that fulfilled our requirement. The owner request a value of $ 649,000 and 10% down payment and 7.5%fixed 1 to 5 year according to the purchase ability and payment by his owner finance. We like to offer him $500,000 and $100,000 at front and if he agree our offer, We need to make deal to pay the $400,000 one time or to make instalment with a profit fixed amount $28,000 for one year pay a total of $428,000 or $540,000 for 5 year. Aselamu alykumtt
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
The transaction that is mentioned in the question and which you want to carry out is not permissible unless one of the two prices that are mentioned are not determined as a price in the contract, otherwise it will be considered as two sales in one sale and this is prohibited.
However, it is permissible to buy the property for cash or by instalments with a higher price provided that the contract is carried out as one sale, which means one of the two prices should be determined and fixed and then the contract will be concluded accordingly. For example, the contract could be concluded at 428,000 from which 100,000 will be paid up front and the remaining will be paid by instalments throughout the year. Or that the contract could be concluded on the price of 540,000 from which 100,000 will be paid up front and the rest will be paid by instalments throughout a period of 5 years provided no condition is made to increase the price if the payment is delayed. For more information about the conditions of selling by instalments, refer to Fatwa 82986.
Allaah Knows best.