“The deciding factor seems to be if they are of Balinese decent then they can't own or sell land but if they are Indonesian (Chinese, Muslim) then they can.”
“The Balinese woman are usually not entitled to inherit anything, but only the men are.”
The first comment is entirely incorrect. Any Indonesian woman, regardless of her religion or province she is from is legally allowed to have property in her name. The idea that a Balinese woman cannot own land is preposterous and entirely false! I challenge anyone to say that to Murni here in Ubud! Murni owns lots of land, and businesses as well.
The second comment made by Bert is partially incorrect and lacks specificity.
Normally land descends within the males of the family, i.e. father to first born son. However, in the event that there are no direct sons, nor any living brothers of the current male land owner, then that land will revert to the surviving wife. This is particularly applicable to family compounds where the overriding concern is the maintenance of the family temples. Maintenance not only includes the physical structures, but of even more importance, the ceremonies and daily offerings.
In this rare situation, the surviving wife will be under some pressure to marry another Balinese male who is not in direct line to assume control of his own family compound (a third or fourth born son for example), and in a specific ceremony, including another tooth filing ceremony, be “adopted” by the ancestors of that compound with the surviving wife. If she chooses not to remarry, which is fine, she will still pursue a male to be adopted by her compound anyway, which she can consider a brother. How this is done is under the adat (rules) of the village. That adopted male may, or may not physically move and live in that compound…it really doesn’t matter.
As for personal property, cars, jewelry, etc. the woman is fully entitled to inherit such things, but when living sons are involved, things like the car will normally go to the sons, as the majority of Balinese women (kanpung based) don’t drive anyway, although, this is slowly changing.
The concept of “ownership” within Balinese culture is entirely different than in Western culture. Their communal style (compound) of living precludes “normal” conventions of ownership, and in general only items of personal use (like a woman’s jewelry) are considered as being owned by a specific person.