Renting

Renting Property in Dubai and other emirate states may be different to your home market. It is however very simple and requires very little input from the tenants a little more effort is required from the Landlords. In these few paragraphs we will try an answer some of your questions

Landlords

At the moment anyone who owns a property can rent it out using a simple tenancy agreement the landlord should make it clear in the agreement which party is responsible for the maintenance of the property so there is no confusion when something stops working.

In the near future landlords will have to registered as authorised landlords at the Land Department this is to give tenants more comfort in that they are dealing with the property owner. This new law has been discussed but not yet put in place.

The Land Department is also investigating a build star rating much like you get on hotels ratings. This is again to make it easier for tenants to understand the building rental rates. The justification for this from the Land Department is that in the same location where you have several private developers and some government owned developers the building construction and quality of finishes can vary massively some private developers have excellent attention to detail and some do not. However the rental is currently decided by the area not the building.

Landlords also need to aware about the rules and regulations of the Rent Committee. The Rent Committee is a body setup to manage the disputes between tenants and landlords. Any tenant can take their landlord to the Rent Committee and the rulings of the committee are final.

Tenants

With the landlords having to watch their backs with the Land Department and Rent Committee it would seem that tenants have an easy ride. Well not really tenants have their fair share of issues.

The biggest one being payment of rent this is done in advance and not just the first month but the whole year in advance. Some landlord may accept payment of rent in two cheques but both cheques are giving at the time of signing the agreement. One cheque dated for the day of the agreement and will be cashed immediately the other dated six months from the date on the agreement.

This gives tenants a huge disadvantage in cash flow and can often restrict the properties they can rent. The other issues is that the rents increase on a annual basis the Rent Committee has capped the rent increase at 7% each year so if last your you paid 100,000 AED this year you will pay 107,000 AED. In the current climate there is little chance of rents dropping or even staying the same.

The next thing is that the landlord only gives yearly agreements and in most cases asks for a side letter to say that you will vacate in 12 months. Without this side letter most locally based landlords will not agree to rent you the property.