Information, not advice. Raja Ampat Investment Intelligence is an independent editorial guide. This page is general information, not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and we never promise returns. Indonesian regulations and customary (adat) land rights are complex and change — verify everything with licensed Indonesian counsel, a notaris, and customary-law experts before any decision. Where useful we can introduce you to vetted independent partners; we may receive a referral fee, at no cost to you.
To invest in Raja Ampat means entering one of Indonesia’s most tightly regulated marine environments through a sequence of legal, social, and logistical steps that no generic Bali business-setup guide covers. The regency sits inside a ~13,550 km² Marine Protected Area network, carries a UNESCO Global Geopark designation earned in 2023, and rests on customary Papuan land where clan ownership is the reality and notarised sale is legally impossible. Anyone who has read only a property listing or a standard PT PMA brochure before flying to Sorong is, frankly, under-prepared.
This guide lays out a phased entry pathway for prospective foreign investors: how to scout responsibly, how to talk to the right people before any money changes hands, which government offices actually matter, what a pilot season is for, and how to find independent legal, notarial, and business-setup support without relying on a single vendor with a stake in your decision. Every step is framed as information, not advice. The sequencing matters as much as any single step.
Phase 1 — The Scouting Trip: What You Are Actually Evaluating
The first trip to Raja Ampat should not be a holiday with some site visits attached. It should be a structured assessment with a specific checklist and, critically, a clear commitment to make no binding decisions during or immediately after it.
Start in Sorong, not Waisai. The city of Sorong, in Southwest Papua province, is the operational base for the region. The Domine Eduard Osok Airport (SOQ) handles direct flights from Jakarta (roughly 4 to 4.5 hours), Makassar, and Manado. Most serious legal and regulatory contacts are here, not on the islands. The ferry crossing to Waisai, the regency capital on Waigeo Island, takes two to three hours and runs once or twice daily — factoring in that crossing, and the further boat time to any specific island site, is itself part of the due-diligence picture.
What to observe on a scouting trip
Four things deserve your focused attention before you evaluate any specific plot of land or existing resort:
The logistics chain. Raja Ampat has no electricity grid connecting its outer islands. Almost every resort or dive operation runs diesel generators or solar-battery systems, with fuel barged in from Sorong. Building materials — cement, steel, roofing, even drinking water infrastructure — arrive by boat on schedules that weather regularly disrupts. You are not evaluating a business site; you are evaluating a small supply operation with a tourism product attached. Ask operators candidly how they handle a two-week weather window that blocks supply runs. The answers will calibrate every cost assumption you brought from elsewhere.
Seasonal rhythm. The primary dive season runs roughly October through April, dictated by the Northwest Monsoon pattern that pushes strong currents through the passages and brings the manta aggregations. The shoulder and off seasons are real: occupancy drops, some operators reduce staff, and some smaller properties close. This matters for cash-flow modelling over a multi-year payback horizon. Sit with an operator through a slow week, not just a peak-season run.
Marine park entry fee context. Every foreign visitor currently pays IDR 700,000 per person (domestic IDR 425,000) for a 12-month multi-entry Marine Park environmental service tag, administered by the Raja Ampat Marine Park Authority (a UPTD BLUD under the provincial Maritime and Fisheries service). There is also a separate tourist levy of IDR 300,000 introduced in late 2019. These fees are not optional add-ons for operators — they are a structural element of the visitor-cost stack and affect your pricing ceiling relative to competing destinations.
The existing operator community. Speak to multiple current operators, not just the one selling an asset. What they will tell you about permit timelines, community relations, and supply chain realities is worth more than any pro-forma financial model. Spend time at dive briefings, talk to dive masters from different operations, and eat at local warungs where the wider community is present.
Phase 2 — Adat Engagement: The Conversation That Cannot Be Skipped
This is the phase that foreign investors most consistently underestimate, and the one that most reliably determines whether a project succeeds or collapses five years in.
Much of Raja Ampat — including virtually all coastline, reef areas, and small islands — is held under tanah ulayat (customary communal land rights) by Papuan clans, organised by lineage groupings known as marga or keret. These rights are recognised under Indonesia’s Constitution (Article 18B(2)), under the Basic Agrarian Law (UUPA, Law 5/1960), and are substantially reinforced by Papua’s Special Autonomy framework (Law 21/2001, amended by Law 2/2021), which creates specific obligations to protect the land and resource rights of Orang Asli Papua (OAP) as an indigenous group.
The central practical reality: customary land is community-owned, not individually owned. A single clan elder signing an agreement does not bind the whole clan, and does not bind successors, younger generation members who were not party to the discussion, or related clans with overlapping claims to the same coastal area. Formal cadastral maps held by the national land agency (BPN/ATR) frequently do not capture these customary boundaries at all. The gap between what a land map shows and what clan members understand to be their territory is a documented source of investment disputes across Raja Ampat and Papua more broadly.
What responsible adat engagement looks like
Free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) is the international standard, but the practical steps matter more than the acronym:
- Identify all potentially relevant clans before identifying any single “counterpart.” Overlapping claims are common. A local notaris familiar with the regency, or an independent Papuan customary-law expert, can help map the relevant parties. This is not a task to delegate to the person selling you the site.
- Hold community meetings, not one-on-one negotiations. Multiple sessions over multiple visits, with a local facilitator who is neither your agent nor the seller’s. Key concerns to surface: what the community expects from employment, from revenue-sharing, from access to their reef, from the long-term exit scenario. These expectations should be discussed explicitly, not assumed.
- Document agreements formally, then register them. A written adat agreement alone is not a land right under Indonesian law. The pathway to a registered, enforceable right (HGB or Hak Pakai held by a PT PMA) requires working through BPN, which itself requires a valid underlying agreement with the rights-holding community. This is where a notaris and a qualified land-affairs consultant become essential. The agreement is the social foundation; the BPN process is the legal one.
- Build in genuine benefit-sharing from the outset. Employment quotas for local Papuans, community funds, reef stewardship participation — these are not optional goodwill gestures. They are the ongoing terms under which a foreign-built operation maintains its social licence. Projects that treated the initial land agreement as a one-time transaction and then operated behind a gate have repeatedly faced renegotiation demands, access blockades, and worse.
The sasi customary tenure system, which places seasonal and categorical restrictions on reef and coastal resource use, is an additional layer of community authority over marine areas. If a site has active sasi arrangements, those interact with your operations planning and with any environmental compliance requirements. Engage with the local village authority (Lembaga Masyarakat Desa) on this directly.
Phase 3 — Government Offices: The Specific Contacts That Matter
Generic PT PMA guides point you to BKPM (now the Ministry of Investment / Kementerian Investasi) and OSS. Those are correct as far as they go, but Raja Ampat investment involves a regulatory stack with additional layers that Bali-centric advisors frequently miss entirely.
In Sorong
DPMPTSP Southwest Papua (or West Papua, depending on province after the 2022 split): The regional investment and integrated licensing service. For any investment above the threshold requiring a Penanaman Modal Asing (foreign capital) structure, this office coordinates the provincial-level inputs into your licensing stack.
BPN/ATR District Office, Sorong: The land affairs office that handles cadastral registration. If your project involves coastal or island land, BPN is the agency that must ultimately issue and register whatever land-right title your PT PMA holds — whether HGB (right to build, up to 30+20+30 years under current PP 18/2021), Hak Pakai (right to use), or a leasehold structure. Understanding BPN’s process for areas with overlapping customary claims is not optional; it is the single most important practical conversation before any site selection is finalised.
Notaris Sorong: A notaris (Indonesian civil-law notary) with active West Papua/Southwest Papua practice is essential for company deed execution, land agreements, and powers of attorney. Not all Bali-registered notaris offices have jurisdiction or local knowledge in Papua. Verify that your notaris has handled coastal/island land transactions in the regency specifically.
In Waisai (Raja Ampat Regency Capital)
Dinas Penanaman Modal dan PTSP Raja Ampat (Regency DPMPTSP): Issues regency-level business and operational permits, including the tourism business licence (Tanda Daftar Usaha Pariwisata / TDUP). For a resort or dive operator, this office is a required stop, not optional.
Dinas Pariwisata Raja Ampat (Tourism Office): Coordinates tourism sector development at regency level. Useful for understanding any current or draft local regulations (Peraturan Bupati / Perbup) on carrying capacity, operating standards, or community-benefit obligations that may not be visible in national regulation databases.
Raja Ampat Marine Park Authority (KKP UPTD BLUD): Issues permits for tourism operations within the Marine Protected Area network, including research, commercial filming, and any activity requiring formal marine park authorisation. For a resort with a dive centre or a liveaboard operation, this office is a direct counterpart on environmental compliance and the marine park fee passthrough system.
Bappeda Raja Ampat (Regional Development Planning Agency): The regency-level body that manages spatial planning (RTRW) and marine spatial planning (RZWP3K). Before any site selection, confirm that the specific location and intended use are consistent with the applicable zoning. Conservation core zones (zona inti) prohibit resort construction outright; only tourism utilisation zones (zona pemanfaatan) permit commercial tourism development.
Plan for multiple visits to these offices across your scouting phase. In-person relationships still matter in this administrative environment, and the quality of information you receive in a first visit is frequently less complete than what you get once officials understand you are a serious, well-prepared party.
Phase 4 — Legal Structure and the PT PMA Pathway
Foreign investors in Raja Ampat tourism operate through a PT PMA (Perseroan Terbatas Penanaman Modal Asing — a foreign-capital limited liability company) for any investment that qualifies as large-scale under Indonesian law. The threshold matters: PT PMA is designated as a large enterprise under PP 7/2021, meaning the investment plan must exceed IDR 10 billion per KBLI business field per location, excluding land and buildings. Micro and small-scale accommodation — including small homestays and pondok wisata — is reserved for Indonesian MSMEs and cooperatives. The size threshold is not a loophole to engineer around; it is the legal boundary between the two regimes.
On minimum paid-up capital: sources vary between IDR 2.5 billion (25% of the IDR 10 billion investment plan, a figure some advisors cite as effective since late 2025 under BKPM regulation changes) and the full IDR 10 billion. This discrepancy is material and must be confirmed against the current in-force BKPM regulation with your appointed Indonesian legal counsel before incorporation — not resolved by asking an advisor who earns a fee from completing the setup.
Choosing the right KBLI codes
Selecting the correct KBLI (Indonesian Standard Industrial Classification) codes upfront is not a formality. The wrong KBLI is a common source of delayed or denied operating licences because a resort or dive centre genuinely operates across several business activities: accommodation (hotels ~55111/55112, or non-star villa accommodation ~55199), restaurant/F&B (56101, cafes 56102), and recreational/marine activity (diving and marine recreation typically 93119 or 93299). A liveaboard operation adds maritime passenger transport considerations (~50119). Getting the KBLI combination right at the OSS (Online Single Submission) registration stage shapes every subsequent licence. An OSS/BKPM consultant with demonstrable Raja Ampat or eastern Indonesia tourism experience — not just generic incorporation experience — is worth the investment here.
Land title under a PT PMA
A PT PMA can hold HGB (Hak Guna Bangunan — right to build) over land that has been properly registered with BPN. For coastal or island land in Raja Ampat, that registration process must navigate customary rights, which as described above is substantially more complex than a standard urban HGB transaction. The HGB duration under PP 18/2021 is 30 years, extendable by 20, then renewable for another 30 — a maximum of 80 years in total, subject to continued compliance and government approval at each renewal. Foreigners individually cannot hold Hak Milik (freehold); that right is restricted to Indonesian citizens. Any structure using nominee Indonesian shareholders to hold land on behalf of a foreigner is explicitly illegal under Article 10(1) of Law 25/2007, and exposure includes dissolution of the company, forfeiture of the asset, and criminal liability. No qualified lawyer will recommend it, and the fact that it “works in practice” until it doesn’t is not a risk framework.
If you are evaluating an existing resort “for sale” structured as a transfer of 100% of the shares in a PT holding company — a structure that does exist in the market — the due diligence on that PT’s land title, permit chain, tax compliance, and adat agreements is the entire transaction. Sellers’ claims that all permits are in order must be verified independently, through your own appointed notaris and legal counsel, against the source documents held at BPN, the relevant DPMPTSP, and the Marine Park Authority. This is not a formality; it is the substance.
Ready to start mapping your legal and logistical groundwork? Plan your entry pathway with our network — we can connect you with independent lawyers, notaris, and OSS consultants who have Raja Ampat-specific experience. WhatsApp planning is available for time-sensitive questions.
Phase 5 — Pilot Season: The Discipline of Not Over-Committing Early
A pilot season is a deliberate period of limited-scale operation before any significant capital expenditure on permanent infrastructure. For a greenfield resort site, this might mean operating two to four temporary bungalows on a valid short-term lease to test occupancy patterns, assess logistics costs in real conditions, and establish your community relationships before committing to a full build. For a liveaboard investment, it might mean taking a minority stake in an existing vessel operation, or operating a chartered vessel for one full season before purchasing and operating your own.
The logic is simple. The unknowns in Raja Ampat that most damage investment returns are not the ones visible in a scouting trip or a pro forma: they are the supply-chain disruptions that occur during specific weather windows, the occupancy reality in the second and third year after initial buzz fades, the actual cost of maintaining a diesel or solar system in a salt-air marine environment, and the quality of community relationships under operational pressure rather than during polite initial meetings. A pilot season converts those unknowns into data.
What a pilot season should test
- Real occupancy and ADR (average daily rate). The listings and competitor claims you gathered in scouting are not your occupancy. Your occupancy is a function of your specific location, your specific product, your booking-channel mix, and the marketing investment you have actually made. A pilot season gives you 6 to 12 months of real data before you commit to a full build.
- Supply-chain costs under operational conditions. The difference between a theoretical diesel cost and the actual cost including delays, safety stock, and opportunistic bulk purchasing during calm weather windows is frequently 20 to 40% above initial estimates in remote eastern Indonesia operations. Measure it before you build a 15-bungalow resort around a budget that assumed the theoretical number.
- Staff sourcing and retention. Local Papuan hiring is both a social obligation and a practical necessity given visa and work-permit constraints for expatriate staff. A pilot season lets you assess what training investment is actually required to reach service standards, and whether you can retain staff across the off season when income is lower.
- Community relationship durability. The adat agreement you negotiated in Phase 2 is a starting point, not a settled fact. A pilot season under real operational conditions — with real access to reefs, real noise, real boats, and real community employment expectations — will surface any tensions or misunderstandings that did not emerge during the negotiation phase. Surfacing them at pilot scale is manageable. At full build-out, they are existential.
Phase 6 — Full Build-Out and Environmental Compliance
Having validated the business model through a pilot season, the decision to proceed to full build-out should rest on a clear environmental and permit pathway, not just financial projections.
The key environmental compliance instrument is the AMDAL (Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan — Environmental Impact Assessment) for larger projects, or the simpler UKL-UPL (Environmental Management and Monitoring Effort) for smaller-scale developments. Within the Raja Ampat MPA network, any commercial tourism construction requires Marine Park Authority permits in addition to the standard building permit (PBG, which replaced the old IMB). For over-water structures — jetties, pontoons, over-water bungalows — the zoning compatibility question is critical: core no-take zones prohibit construction; only designated tourism utilisation zones allow it, and the precise zoning for any site is confirmed through Bappeda’s spatial planning documents (RTRW and RZWP3K), not assumed from location.
The 2025 nickel-mining permit revocations — where four mining licences (PT Kawei Sejahtera Mining on Kawe Island, PT Anugerah Surya Pratama on Manuran Island, PT Mulia Raymond Perkasa on Manyaifun and Batang Pele Islands, and PT Nurham on Waigeo Island) were publicly announced as revoked following Greenpeace Indonesia reporting and public protests — illustrate both the political environment and the enforcement risk. Conservation-aligned tourism is the regency’s stated economic pathway; extraction-based and high-impact development carries both political risk and the risk that permits, once issued, are later challenged. That applies to poorly-sited tourism development as much as to mining: the 12 of 16 nickel licences cited as falling within the Geopark boundary is a reminder that the spatial layer of regulation is applied, not merely written.
The post-2025 environment favours investors who can demonstrate that their project is MPA-compliant, community-beneficial, and conservation-aligned. The investor who arrives with an AMDAL already underway, a community benefit-sharing agreement in writing, and a waste-and-water-management plan will receive a different quality of engagement from regulators than one who asks what the minimum compliance requirements are.
Phase 7 — Finding Independent Professional Support
This section is framed explicitly as information, not as a referral or recommendation. The aim is to help you structure the right professional relationships, not to tell you which firms to engage.
Indonesian legal counsel
You need a firm or individual lawyer licensed to practise Indonesian law, with specific experience in: (1) PT PMA structuring and OSS/BKPM registration; (2) land transactions involving customary rights in Papua; and (3) tourism-sector licensing. These three specialisations rarely sit in the same Bali-based boutique. Firms that handle Jakarta-based foreign investment structuring may have no experience with adat land in West Papua or Southwest Papua. Ask specifically: have you handled a coastal land registration process in Raja Ampat Regency or the surrounding provinces? If the answer is no, that lawyer may be useful for the OSS/BKPM part of your work, but you will need separate Papuan customary-law expertise for the land-rights component.
Notaris
The notaris (Indonesian civil-law notary) executes and authenticates the company deed, land agreements, and powers of attorney. Notaris jurisdiction is geographically scoped in Indonesia. For a Raja Ampat project, a notaris with active West Papua or Southwest Papua jurisdiction is preferable for land and community-agreement documents. For the company deed, a Sorong-based notaris or one with demonstrated regional practice is appropriate. The Sorong/Waisai notaris community is small; asking other operators in the regency who they used is a reasonable starting point for building your list of candidates.
OSS/BKPM consultants
OSS registration has become more standardised under the risk-based licensing reforms, but the KBLI selection, investment-plan drafting, and coordination between national BKPM, provincial DPMPTSP, and regency DPMPTSP is still complex enough to warrant a consultant who has completed the process for a tourism operation in eastern Indonesia specifically. The market has many consultants who can process a straightforward Bali villa PT PMA in four to eight weeks; the Raja Ampat situation requires someone who has navigated the additional layers of West Papua/Southwest Papua provincial licensing and understands the marine park permit coordination. Ask for specific past client references in the region.
Independent financial modelling
Do not accept a financial model from the seller of any asset, or from any consultant whose fee is contingent on the transaction closing. Commission a standalone financial model from an independent advisor — or build it yourself, using the real operating-cost data you gather during your scouting trips and pilot season. The deal-specific inputs are: real occupancy data from comparable existing operators (ask them directly during Phase 1); real current fuel, freight, and supply costs (ask the boat operators and suppliers you meet); and real permit and compliance cost estimates from your legal counsel. Generic ROI numbers sourced from marketing materials are not inputs to a financial model; they are marketing materials.
When you are ready to move from research to action, our contact and partner page outlines how to reach the editorial team and how to use our WhatsApp-based planning channel to ask specific questions about vetted professional resources in Sorong and Waisai.
The Sequence in Summary
- Phase 1 — Scouting Trip
- Structured assessment in Sorong and on-island sites; logistics and seasonality observation; conversations with existing operators; no commitments.
- Phase 2 — Adat Engagement
- Identify all relevant clans; hold community meetings with independent facilitation; draft and formalise agreements with notaris support; establish benefit-sharing terms.
- Phase 3 — Government Offices
- Engage DPMPTSP, BPN/ATR, Dinas Pariwisata, Marine Park Authority, and Bappeda in both Sorong and Waisai; verify spatial-plan zoning for any target site.
- Phase 4 — Legal Structure
- PT PMA incorporation via OSS; KBLI selection with specialist consultant; land-title pathway through BPN; independent legal counsel engaged before any deposit paid.
- Phase 5 — Pilot Season
- Limited-scale operation to validate occupancy, supply-chain costs, staff sourcing, and community relationship durability before committing to full build capital.
- Phase 6 — Full Build-Out
- AMDAL/UKL-UPL and PBG obtained; Marine Park Authority permits secured; construction consistent with MPA zoning; community employment and benefit-sharing operational.
- Phase 7 — Opening and Ongoing Compliance
- TDUP/SIUP tourism licences live; LKPM quarterly investment reporting to BKPM; annual tax compliance (22% CIT, 11% VAT, hotel/restaurant levy ~10%); marine park permit renewals; community fund disbursements.
A Note on Risk Transparency
This guide would be incomplete without an honest statement of what the published facts indicate about risk categories specific to Raja Ampat. None of the following is speculative; each has a documentary basis.
Adat land disputes. The pattern of tourism and resort projects in Papua facing clan challenges — from rival claim holders, from community members who allege insufficient consultation, from successors who were not party to original agreements — is documented across academic research and NGO reporting. The risk is structural, not exceptional. Phase 2 engagement is the mitigation, not the elimination.
Permit revocation precedent. The June 2025 announcement of four nickel-mining permit revocations in Raja Ampat (with a significant caveat: later investigations found no published administrative revocation decrees, and at least one legal analysis argues the gap between political announcement and legal finality is substantial) demonstrates that the political environment can change permit status. The caveat matters: the risk cuts both ways. Environmental enforcement is real, but so is the institutional complexity that means “permit revoked” and “permit legally terminated” are not always the same thing.
Leasehold exit liquidity. Raja Ampat resort assets trade in a thin secondary market. The buyer pool for a 15-bungalow dive resort on a long-term clan lease in a remote eastern Indonesia regency is small. Exit scenarios must be modelled conservatively; anyone projecting a straightforward capital gain realisation in five years is not modelling this market honestly.
Currency and repatriation. Dividend withholding tax is 20% (treaty-reducible depending on your jurisdiction of residence), corporate income tax is 22%, and IDR/USD exchange-rate movement over a 10-to-15-year holding period is material. These are not obstacles to investment; they are inputs to the financial model that should be present from the first draft.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does the full process from first scouting trip to opening day typically take in Raja Ampat?
There is no honest single answer, but a realistic minimum for a greenfield project is three to five years from first scouting trip to guest-ready operation. PT PMA incorporation through OSS takes four to eight weeks under favourable conditions, but the adat engagement, BPN land-title registration for customary land, AMDAL environmental assessment, and construction in a remote location each carry their own timeline. Investors who have planned on a two-year end-to-end timeline have consistently found it insufficient. The pilot-season approach — operating at limited scale before full build — adds time but substantially de-risks the capital commitment at the full-build stage.
Can a foreigner own 100% of a dive resort PT PMA in Raja Ampat?
Under the current Positive Investment List (Perpres 10/2021 as amended by Perpres 49/2021), large-scale tourism businesses including hotels, resorts, and marine recreational operators are generally open to 100% foreign ownership through a qualifying PT PMA. The key word is large-scale: operations that fall at the micro or small MSME scale are reserved for Indonesian nationals. You should verify each specific KBLI code you intend to register against the Perpres annex, because conditions and caps can differ by business-activity line, and the regulations have been amended. This is a verification task for your Indonesian legal counsel, not a question that can be definitively answered from any public-facing guide.
What is the realistic minimum capital needed to start investing in Raja Ampat eco-tourism?
The PT PMA investment plan threshold of IDR 10 billion (roughly USD 600,000 to 650,000 at mid-2025 exchange rates, excluding land and buildings) is the minimum scale at which a foreign-owned large-enterprise structure is legally available. That figure does not include land lease costs, construction, boat assets, solar or generator systems, or working capital. Published island lease prices in the market have ranged from around EUR 250,000 for a 15-year leasehold on a small island in a nature-reserve zone to higher figures for better-positioned sites. An honest feasibility budget for a 10 to 15 bungalow greenfield operation typically runs well above USD 1.5 million when all capital requirements are included. The Papuan community homestay model operates at substantially lower capital — but that model is structured around Indonesian and Papuan ownership, not foreign investor ownership, for both legal and policy reasons.
How do I find vetted local lawyers and notaris for a Raja Ampat investment?
The starting point is the Indonesian Bar Association (PERADI) and the Indonesian Notary Association (INI), both of which have regional chapters. For Sorong-based practitioners, the Southwest Papua and West Papua provincial chapters of both organisations list registered members. Beyond the directory, the most reliable signal is a track record of completed transactions in coastal or island land in Raja Ampat Regency specifically — ask any candidate directly for references from clients who have completed similar projects, and verify those references. Our partner page provides guidance on how to approach this search through the editorial network.
What happens if the adat community changes its position after we have built?
This is the right question to ask before building, and the answer depends almost entirely on the quality of the original agreement and the ongoing relationship. A properly registered land right (HGB through BPN) with clear documentary evidence of community consent provides legal standing in Indonesian courts. But litigation in a remote regency against a community dispute is slow, expensive, reputationally damaging, and operationally disruptive whether or not the investor ultimately prevails. The more durable protection is a genuine ongoing relationship: employment, revenue-sharing disbursements on schedule, participation in reef stewardship, responsiveness when community concerns arise. Investors who built the community relationship as a transaction — pay once, done — consistently face more difficulty than those who maintained it as a partnership with continuing obligations on both sides.