Dubai property terms, explained

Dubai Land Department (DLD)

Also called DLD, Land Department

The Dubai government department that registers real estate and every transaction on it, in a property register to which the law gives “absolute evidentiary value against all parties”.

A sale or a mortgage has no effect until it is registered with the DLD, and an off-plan sale that is not registered is void. RERA, the regulator, is affiliated to it.

RERA (Real Estate Regulatory Agency)

Also called RERA

The regulator of Dubai real estate, affiliated to the DLD. It licenses brokers, developers and the other real estate businesses, approves off-plan projects and the banks that hold their escrow accounts, and approves property adverts and the service charge budgets of jointly owned buildings.

RERA monitors each off-plan project’s completion percentage and considers complaints against licensed brokers and developers. Registering leases has been the DLD’s job since 2019.

Dubai REST

The DLD’s app for its real estate services, used by owners, tenants, buyers, developers and brokers.

It lists licensed brokers and brokerage offices, and its Mashrooi section shows whether a project is licensed and registered. For an off-plan project you have bought into, it shows the completion percentage, photos of the site, the escrow account number and the payments due: compare that account with the one in your contract before every transfer. Owners and tenants also register leases in it.

Registration trustee

Also called Trustee office

An office that registers property transactions on the DLD’s behalf; the sale of a finished property is registered at a registration trustee office.

The seller and the buyer, or their legally authorised representatives, complete the transfer there, and the buyer’s title deed is issued electronically. On top of the DLD’s fees, the DLD lists the trustee office’s service fee as AED 4,000 plus VAT for a sale of AED 500,000 or more, and AED 2,000 plus VAT below that. Leases and other services go through real estate services trustee offices.

Freehold

Full ownership of a property with no time limit, which foreigners may hold in Dubai only in the areas the Ruler has designated, the freehold areas.

Otherwise the law reserves ownership in Dubai to UAE and GCC nationals, companies wholly owned by them and public joint stock companies. In a freehold area, a property may also be registered in the name of a company owned by foreigners if the company is registered in a Dubai free zone, or in another emirate covered by a memorandum of understanding.

Usufruct and leasehold

Also called Long-term lease

Rights to use a property owned by someone else for a fixed term; in the designated areas the law lets foreigners hold them “for a period not exceeding ninety-nine (99) years”.

They are registered in the DLD’s property register, not in Ejari like an ordinary lease, and may be sold for the remaining term. Musataha, in the words of the DLD’s fee resolution, is a contract “for the use and development of the land of another Person”.

Title deed

The DLD’s certificate of ownership, issued from its property register, which the law gives “absolute evidentiary value in verifying Real Property Rights”.

For an off-plan unit it is issued after completion, once you have met all your obligations under the SPA: on a plan with instalments after handover, normally after the last one. The DLD’s fees for it are AED 250 for the deed, AED 250 for the unit’s map and AED 20, and it is issued electronically. When a finished property is sold, the buyer’s title deed is issued at the registration trustee.

Real estate broker

Also called Broker

A person licensed to arrange property sales or leases for a commission, registered in the DLD’s brokers register and holding a broker card from RERA.

Brokerage offices are registered too, each with an office registration number (ORN). Search a broker or office by name, mobile number, area or ORN on the DLD’s list of licensed brokers, or in Dubai REST. A broker who is not licensed by RERA may lose the right to a commission, and on an off-plan sale a broker must pay the price into the project’s escrow account, not into their own.

Broker card

The professional card RERA issues, through Trakheesi, to a licensed real estate broker, valid for as long as the brokerage’s licence.

Ask to see it, and check the name against the DLD’s list of licensed brokers.

Trakheesi

Trakheesi is RERA’s online system for real estate licences and permits: through it RERA issues brokers’ professional cards, brokerage offices’ registration and the permit every property advert needs, with its Madmoun QR code.

On an advert, look for the permit number and the QR code; from a broker, ask to see the card.

Advertising permit

Also called Trakheesi permit, Ad permit

The permit, issued by RERA through Trakheesi, that every property advert in Dubai needs: in print or online, on platforms and social media, at exhibitions and at launch events.

Its number must appear in the advert, and since April 2023 so must its Madmoun QR code. A broker needs a marketing contract with the owner to get one, and a developer may not advertise or exhibit an off-plan project without the DLD’s written authorisation. In October 2020 the DLD said its fines for adverts without a valid permit were “progressive and start from AED 50,000” and could go as far as cancelling the company’s licence.

Madmoun

Madmoun is the DLD’s QR code for property adverts, issued with every advertising permit through Trakheesi and required since 24 April 2023, now “on all real estate advertisements, whether visual or written”.

Scanning it shows whether RERA approved the advert, who placed it, the property’s authorised details and whether it has been sold or rented. The DLD advises buyers to deal only with adverts that carry it.

Off-plan

Also called Off-plan sale

A property sold before it is finished; Dubai law calls this an off-plan sale.

A developer may sell off-plan only after taking possession of the land and obtaining the approvals for the project, and a contract for a unit in a project that is not approved is void. Your instalments go into the project’s escrow account, and your purchase stays in the interim register until the building is finished and you have met your obligations under the SPA.

Developer

The company that builds and sells a project; it must be entered in the DLD’s register of real estate developers and licensed before it may develop.

A master developer develops a whole area, its land, infrastructure and shared facilities, and a sub-developer builds part of it, such as one building, under an agreement with the master developer. The master developer’s rules for the area, its Master Community Declaration, form part of your title deed.

Expression of interest (EOI)

Also called EOI

A payment that registers your interest in a unit before a project officially launches, before you reserve a unit or sign a sale and purchase agreement.

Before RERA has approved the project there is no escrow account to pay it into: the account is opened only after approval, the DLD says a new project may be launched or announced only “After completing all registration procedures and obtaining the accreditation certificate”, and a sale contract for a project that is not approved is void. Before you pay, look the project up in the DLD’s Project Status Enquiry and get the refund terms in writing. Once you reserve a unit in an approved project, your booking payment is part of the price and goes into the escrow account.

Sale and purchase agreement (SPA)

Also called SPA

Your contract with the developer for an off-plan unit. The developer files its standard form with the DLD before it may sell off-plan, and must register your signed SPA within 90 days of signing.

The SPA, not the law, sets most of what matters to you: the payment plan, the expected completion date and grace period, compensation for delay, and whether and when you may resell. Read those clauses before you sign.

Payment plan

The schedule in your SPA that splits the price into a booking payment, instalments during construction, a payment on completion and, in a post-handover plan, instalments after you get the keys.

An instalment tied to a construction stage is due when the stage is reached, and the DLD says you may first ask for a letter from the project consultant it has approved; an instalment on a fixed date is due on the date. Labels such as “60/40” are not used the same way by every developer: ask what each number means. The DLD’s 4% registration fee comes on top.

Escrow account

The bank account, opened in the project’s name with a bank approved by RERA, into which every instalment of the price of an off-plan unit goes; by law it is “dedicated exclusively to the construction of that Real Estate Development project”.

The developer’s creditors cannot seize it, and each project has its own. It is not frozen until handover: the bank pays contractors and consultants as construction stages are completed and checked. You may see the records of your own payments and ask for copies.

Oqood

Oqood is the DLD’s online portal for developers, its Real Estate Developers Portal, in which a developer registers each off-plan sale in the interim register.

The developer must do this within 90 days of signing the SPA, and the DLD then emails you a provisional registration certificate, which brokers and developers often call “the Oqood” or a pre-title deed. An “Oqood fee” is the DLD’s registration fee: 4% of the price plus AED 20. The DLD also charges the developer AED 1,000, and any further fee a developer charges you must be one the DLD has approved.

Interim register

Also called Interim Property Register, Initial register, Provisional register

The DLD’s register of off-plan sales, in which a unit’s sale and any resale are recorded until the unit moves to the property register.

A sale or resale of an off-plan unit that is not entered in it is void. When your SPA is registered, the DLD emails you a provisional registration certificate; ask for it if it has not come within 90 days of signing, and if the developer still has not registered the sale, you can apply to the DLD to register it yourself. Once the project is complete, the units of buyers who have met their obligations move to the property register and get a title deed.

DLD registration fee (4%)

Also called Transfer fee

The fee the DLD charges to register a sale of property: 4% of the price, plus AED 20.

The DLD’s fee resolution shares the 4% equally between seller and buyer unless they agree otherwise, and its service pages list it as 2% each; the DLD says it is paid as the seller and the buyer agree, so your contract decides. On an off-plan purchase it is charged when the developer registers your SPA; on a finished property, at the registration trustee, where the title deed, map and trustee fees come on top. A resale pays it again, on its own price.

NOC (no-objection certificate)

Also called NOC

A NOC is a developer’s written consent to the resale of a unit in its project, which the DLD needs before it registers the sale.

For an off-plan unit the DLD puts it plainly: “Resale is possible after obtaining a No Objection Certificate from the developer”. For a finished property in a freehold area, the DLD asks for the developer’s electronic NOC, issued through Dubai REST. The law lets a developer charge on a sale or resale only “those administrative costs which are approved by the Department”; when it issues the NOC, and after how much of the price paid, is set by your contract. Other consents are called NOCs too, such as the owner’s NOC a tenant needs to register a lease at a trustee office.

Assignment

Also called Resale before handover, Off-plan resale

Selling your off-plan unit, or your place in the SPA, to a new buyer before completion.

It needs the developer’s NOC and must be registered in the interim register: a resale that is not registered is void. The new sale pays the DLD’s 4% fee on its own price. Whether your contract allows a resale at all, and after how much of the price paid, is a contract term; we found no DLD or RERA rule that sets a minimum.

Missed payment (Article 11)

Also called Article 11

Article 11 of Dubai’s off-plan law, rewritten in 2020, sets what happens when a buyer misses a payment or another obligation under an off-plan sale agreement.

The developer notifies the DLD, which gives you 30 days to perform and tries to mediate. Only then, once the DLD has issued a document confirming this and the project’s completion percentage, calculated by RERA’s standards, may the developer act, without going to court, within these limits: above 80%, keep the contract and claim the rest of the price, have the unit sold at auction, or end the contract and keep up to 40% of the price; from 60% to 80%, end it and keep up to 40%; below 60%, once work has started, up to 25%. Anything above that must be refunded within a year of ending the contract, or within 60 days of reselling the unit if that comes first. If work never started for reasons beyond the developer’s control and without its negligence, or RERA cancelled the project by a final decision, the developer must refund all payments. A measure taken outside these steps is void, and you can still go to court or arbitration.

Under cancellation

Under cancellation is the status of an off-plan project whose cancellation is being considered but not yet decided: in the DLD’s words, “At this stage, the project has not yet been cancelled”.

Reaching a decision “may take at least three months”, and until RERA cancels the project the refund procedure does not start. The bylaw obliges RERA to notify the developer; it does not oblige anyone to tell the buyers, so check your project in the DLD’s Project Status Enquiry before each payment. If it shows this status, take advice before you pay again.

Project cancellation

RERA’s decision, based on a reasoned technical report, to cancel an off-plan project, for example because the developer failed without valid reason to start construction, acted with gross negligence or went bankrupt.

The developer may object to RERA within seven working days and can then take the cancellation to the Special Tribunal for Unfinished and Cancelled Real Property Projects; once the cancellation is final, all payments must be refunded. The bylaw sets 14 days for the escrow bank’s refund and 60 days for the developer to make up any shortfall, unless RERA extends that. A finally cancelled project is liquidated by the Tribunal, which settles buyers’ rights after deducting liquidation expenses; the DLD says liquidation has no fixed duration and pays buyers “either in full or in proportion, depending on the amount available in the account”. For an unfinished project, the Tribunal can instead assign its completion to another developer. Its decisions are not subject to ordinary appeal.

Completion certificate

The certificate from the authority that issues building permits confirming that a project is finished.

The law counts from it: the developer must then register the project, and the units of buyers who have met their obligations, in the property register; the escrow bank holds back 5% of the account; and the developer’s ten-year liability for structural defects starts. Completion is not handover: completion is when the building is finished, handover is when you get the keys.

Handover

Handover is the day the developer gives you the keys to your finished unit.

Dubai’s off-plan laws set no handover date and no compensation for delay; both come from your SPA, and if a delay becomes serious you can ask a court to end the contract. Once the completion certificate is issued, the developer may not refuse to hand over or register a unit whose buyer has met all their obligations under the contract, even if the buyer owes it money on other matters. Nor may it keep you out of your unit, outside the law’s procedures, to force payment of service charges.

Snagging

Inspecting a finished unit for defects before or at handover, and the list of faults you then ask the developer to fix.

Faults found later are covered by the developer’s defects liability. If a unit proves unfit for use because of material construction defects, you may ask a court to end the contract.

Defects liability

The developer’s legal duty to repair defects in a jointly owned building or community after handover: one year for installations, ten years for the structure.

The developer must repair or replace defective installations, such as mechanical and electrical works and sanitary and sewerage installations, for one year from handover (from the completion certificate if you do not take possession), and remedy defects in the structure for ten years from the completion certificate. An agreement made after the law came into force in late 2019 that contradicts these rules is void.

Retention (escrow)

The 5% of each escrow account that the bank must hold back once the developer has the completion certificate, released to the developer one year after the units are registered in the buyers’ names.

The DLD describes it as security for the repair of defects found at completion or in the year after handover.

Net area

The area of a unit that the DLD registers, calculated by the DLD’s method; the DLD’s official unit is the square metre.

Your service charge is calculated on the area recorded in the property register. If the finished unit is more than 5% smaller than the net area in your SPA and plan, the developer must compensate you, based on the price in your contract; under the implementing bylaw it may not charge for extra area unless the contract says so. Ask which area your price per square foot and your service charge are based on.

Form A

Also called Contract A

Form A is the DLD’s standard contract between a seller and the brokerage that markets the property.

The regulator’s guide: “Contract A: An agreement to market a property between the seller and the real estate brokerage.” Brokers must use the DLD’s electronic contracts, and a broker needs this marketing contract with the owner to get the advertising permit for a listing.

Form B

Also called Contract B

Form B is the DLD’s standard contract between a buyer and the broker who looks for a property for them: “An agreement of desire to purchase a property between the buyer and the real estate broker”.

Like the other brokerage contracts, it states the commission rate. The law leaves the commission to the agreement; where the agreement is silent, custom applies.

Form F

Also called Contract F, MOU

Form F, also called the MOU, is the DLD’s standard sale contract between the seller and the buyer of a property: “An agreement to sell a property between the seller and the buyer”.

It records the agreed terms, including the security deposit — around 10% of the price is common — and what happens to the deposit if either side does not complete; read that clause before you sign. If a dispute arises and both sides apply through Trakheesi, RERA tries to settle it amicably; otherwise the courts decide.

Manager’s cheque

A cheque issued by a UAE bank on its own funds rather than drawn on a customer’s account, the UAE’s equivalent of a banker’s draft or cashier’s check.

The DLD accepts it among the ways to pay its fees at a registration trustee. When a seller is represented under a power of attorney, Dubai law firms report that a DLD circular of July 2025 has the price paid by manager’s cheque in the name of the owner on the title deed, or to the representative only on conditions. Buying a finished property from abroad, ask early how the price will reach the seller; a manager’s cheque needs the money in a UAE bank account in time.

Jointly owned property

Dubai’s legal term for a building, or a subdivided community, whose units are owned separately while some parts are shared.

The shared parts of a building, such as its structure, lobbies and lifts, are its common parts; the shared spaces of a whole master community, such as its streets, gardens and beaches, are its common facilities. Owners pay service charges for the first and usage charges for the second.

Building Management Regulation

The rulebook of a jointly owned building, setting out how its common parts are maintained and how owners share the costs.

For a whole master community, the master developer issues a Master Community Declaration with the rules for developing and running it, approved by RERA. Both form part of the title deed and bind owners and tenants alike. Substantial changes to the structure or the outside of a unit need the approval of the master developer, the DLD and the authority that issues building permits. Ask for both documents before you buy.

Service charge

The annual charge owners pay for managing, operating, maintaining and repairing a jointly owned building; the usage charge is its equivalent for the shared facilities of a master community.

Your share is calculated on your unit’s area as recorded in the property register. No management company may collect “any amounts whatsoever” without RERA’s approval, and RERA approves a budget only once an audit firm it recognises has approved it, though it may approve a temporary budget meanwhile. The developer pays on units it has not sold. The approved charges for existing buildings are public in the DLD’s Service Charge Index; for an off-plan unit, the figure you are quoted is an estimate.

Mollak

Mollak is the DLD’s system for jointly owned buildings, in which management companies, their contracts and auditors are registered, service charge budgets are approved and owners are invoiced.

Pay service charges only against a Mollak invoice and through the channels it names: the DLD says management companies may not claim charges RERA has not approved.

Management company

The company, recognised by RERA, that runs a jointly owned building or community: its maintenance, cleaning, security, insurance and service charge account.

In ordinary buildings, neither major projects nor hotel projects, RERA selects and contracts it; in major projects the developer manages, itself or through a management company RERA approves; hotel projects have a hotel project management company. It keeps the service charges in a bank account of their own, which its creditors cannot seize. The owners associations of the 2007 law went with that law in 2019; their rights and obligations passed to the management entities.

Owners committee

A committee of up to nine resident owners, appointed by RERA once at least 10% of a jointly owned building’s units are registered in their owners’ names, that represents the owners towards the management company and RERA.

It reviews the maintenance budgets and passes owners’ complaints to RERA when the management company has not dealt with them within 14 days. Members must live in the building, so an owner who lives abroad cannot sit on it.

Emirates ID

Also called UAE ID

The UAE’s identity card for residents.

You do not need one to buy property in Dubai: for an off-plan purchase and for the sale of a finished property, the DLD accepts a valid passport from buyers who do not live in the UAE.

Power of attorney (PoA)

Also called PoA

A document that lets someone sign for you in Dubai, for example at the registration trustee when a finished property is transferred.

One issued abroad must be notarised, go through any certification your country requires, be attested by your country’s foreign ministry, the UAE embassy there and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and be translated into Arabic. The DLD’s FAQ gives it two years for a sale, mortgage or gift and five years from notarisation for a purchase. Dubai law firms reading a DLD circular of July 2025 say the DLD wants wording that names the transaction and, for one issued abroad, the original paper document, issued no more than two years before it is used, whatever the transaction. Assume two years: sign it close to when it will be used, and have the wording checked in Dubai before you sign it.

Attestation

Also called Legalisation

The chain of official certifications that makes a foreign document usable in the UAE, ending with the UAE embassy in the issuing country and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The UAE is not a party to the Apostille Convention, so an apostille does not do the job on its own: the document first goes through its own country’s steps (in the UK, the Foreign Office’s apostille is one of them) and is then attested on the UAE side. Some UAE embassies now attest digitally, through an online application you sign in to with UAE Pass, the UAE’s digital ID; whether the DLD accepts a digital attestation together with the original paper is not settled, so ask the developer or the trustee office before you start. For the translation into Arabic, use a translator on the UAE Ministry of Justice’s list: apart from translators that the courts or the public prosecution bring in themselves, UAE law does not let authorities certify, or courts accept, any other translation.

Source of funds

Evidence of where the money for your purchase comes from, such as salary, savings, a sale, an inheritance or a gift.

Your broker and the receiving UAE bank must check it under the UAE’s anti-money-laundering law, and your own bank under the rules of its country. Real estate brokers are designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) under the UAE law and must keep the records for at least five years. No UAE rule sets a number of months of bank statements: each bank decides by the risk it sees.

Real Estate Activity Report

A report a broker must file with the UAE’s Financial Intelligence Unit, through its goAML platform, when a freehold sale or purchase involves cash of AED 55,000 or more, or virtual assets.

Cash counts in one payment or several, and money converted from or into virtual assets triggers it too. It is triggered by how the deal is paid, not by suspicion, and is a different filing from a suspicious transaction report. If you pay by bank transfer, with money that did not come from virtual assets, it does not apply.

Mortgage

A loan secured on a property, which in Dubai only a bank or finance company licensed by the UAE Central Bank may hold, and which takes effect only when registered with the DLD.

A unit bought off-plan can be mortgaged while it is in the interim register. The Central Bank caps loans on property bought off-plan at 50% of its value; for an expatriate buying a finished property, at 80% for a first home under AED 5 million, 70% above that, and 60% for a second home or an investment property. Banks may lend less to buyers who live abroad: Mashreq finances up to 50% of the property’s fair market value and HSBC up to 60% of its value (October 2026), each on its own valuation.

Dirham (AED)

Also called AED

The UAE’s currency, pegged by the Central Bank to the US dollar at 3.6725 dirhams per dollar.

Prices, payment plans and fees in Dubai are fixed in dirhams, so a buyer who earns in euros or pounds carries the exchange rate between their currency and the dollar. For a buyer who earns in dollars, the rate does not move while the peg holds; the bank’s margin still applies.

DIFC will

A will registered with the courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre, open to people who are not, and have never been, Muslim and who have assets in the UAE, including people who do not live there.

The appointment can be held online. Without a will, UAE rules point in different directions for an owner who lives abroad: one to the law of your nationality, another to the law in force in Dubai for property in the emirate. With a will registered in Dubai, your UAE assets are distributed according to its terms. Dubai Courts keep a register of non-Muslim wills too, and the DLD’s FAQ says it registers a deceased foreigner’s property on a letter approved by Dubai Courts. Make sure your Dubai will does not contradict your will at home.

Ejari

Ejari is the DLD’s system for registering tenancy contracts in Dubai; the law requires every lease, and every amendment to it, to be registered, since 2019 with the DLD.

Leases use the DLD’s unified tenancy contract and are registered in Dubai REST or on the Ejari website, for AED 177.75, or at a services trustee office, for AED 220; a tenant can start the registration, but the landlord must approve it. A lease in Ejari may run for up to ten years. Your tenant needs the Ejari registration to connect electricity and water with DEWA.

Smart Rental Index

Also called Rental index

The DLD’s index of average residential rents, launched in January 2025, which classifies each building by its construction, finishes, location and services.

It decides how much a landlord may raise the rent when a lease is renewed. Under Dubai’s rent decree, the landlord may raise it only if it is more than 10% below the average for similar units: by at most 5% if it is 11% to 20% below, 10% if 21% to 30% below, 15% if 31% to 40% below, and 20% if more than 40% below. The DLD says the index is indicative for a new lease and binding when the parties disagree about an increase at renewal; its rental increase calculator applies it to a contract.

Holiday home

Dubai’s term for a residential unit let to visitors as short-term accommodation, which needs a permit from the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET).

In DET’s words: “All apartments and villas must be registered and approved by DET prior to listing.” If you plan to let this way, ask before you buy whether the building allows it.

Gross and net yield

Gross yield is a year’s rent divided by the purchase price; net yield is the rent left after empty months, management and the service charge, divided by everything you paid, including the DLD’s registration fee.

Ask which of the two a figure in a brochure is, and work out the net one for the unit you are offered.

Guaranteed rental return

Also called Rental guarantee

A promise from a company to pay you a fixed amount each year for a set number of years, whatever the unit actually earns.

It is only as good as the company that signs it: what you pay for an off-plan unit goes into the project’s escrow account, which by law serves only construction, so the guarantee is paid from that company’s own money. Ask who signs it, and the price of the same unit without it.