Guides · Dubai
Dubai property, explained
Short answers to the things people type when they are about to rent, buy or move in — the registry every lease goes through, the rule that caps the rent, the fees on the day, the number on the door. Each one a few hundred words with the figure in it, regulation stated as regulation and convention marked as convention, and a link down to the page that carries the live number.
Renting
The registry every lease goes through, its renewal and its end, and the rule that caps the rent.
The Dubai tenancy contract
The one form every Dubai lease is written on — what each box records, what the printed terms commit you to, what to put on the extra page, how one is made, and what the law does with it when the year runs out.
Read →September 2026
Ejari
The Dubai Land Department’s registry of tenancy contracts — why every lease is registered, who does it, what it costs, and what you cannot do without the certificate.
Read →September 2026
The RERA rental index
The rule that decides how much a Dubai landlord may raise the rent at renewal, the calculator that applies it, and the ninety days’ notice that makes it stick.
Read →September 2026
The Rental Dispute Centre
The Land Department’s tribunal for landlords and tenants — what it hears, what a case costs, the three stages and how long they take, what to bring, and the notice rules almost every case turns on.
Read →September 2026
The Dubai eviction notice
The one document that can end a Dubai tenancy against the tenant’s will — the twelve months, the four reasons, the notary, what the landlord has to prove and what the tenant can check, what happens after the date, and what the register says the notice is worth in each part of the city.
Read →September 2026
Tenancy contract renewal in Dubai
The contract the law renews for you and the registration nobody renews for you: the steps, the fees and the one a landlord may not charge, the ninety-day rule, and what lapses if the Ejari does.
Read →September 2026
Ejari cancellation
Closing the record when a tenancy ends: who can cancel the registration, online or at a counter, what the department asks for and charges, the DEWA account and the deposit either side of it, and why the next tenant’s Ejari fails until it is done.
Read →September 2026
Buying
What a purchase costs on the day, the paperwork it runs on, and what to check before and after.
Buying property in Dubai as a foreigner
Yes, and in your own name: who can buy and where, what you need, the purchase in the order it happens, what it costs, what a home sells for from the register of every sale in the city, and the questions a buyer abroad asks about paying, borrowing, visas and tax.
Read →September 2026
What are the costs of buying property in Dubai?
Roughly 7% on top of the price, in cash, on transfer day — every fee, who pays it, and what owning costs after.
Read →October 2026
The trustee office, where a Dubai sale completes
The private office where Dubai’s property transfers are actually done: what it is, the morning in the order it happens, what it costs and who pays, what each side brings, how long it takes, and the department’s nineteen offices by area with their hours.
Read →September 2026
What are the risks of buying off-plan in Dubai?
Mostly delay, then price — counted from RERA’s project register and the sales, with what protects you and what to check.
Read →October 2026
Rent to own in Dubai
A lease with a purchase inside it: what the contract fixes, the two very different things Dubai calls by the name, what the Land Department charges to register one, what to check before you sign — and how many people actually buy a home this way, from the register that records every one.
Read →September 2026
Oqood
The Dubai Land Department’s register for homes that do not exist yet: what the certificate is, who files it, what it costs, what it lets you do, and how it turns into a title deed.
Read →September 2026
Payment plans in Dubai
The developer’s way of selling a home without a bank: what the numbers in the brochure mean, how a post-handover plan works, where a ready home on a plan can be found, the escrow law behind every instalment, what the plan costs you, what happens if you miss one — and how many homes are actually bought this way, from the register that records every one.
Read →September 2026
The title deed
The Dubai Land Department’s certificate of ownership: what is on it, how to check one is genuine before a deposit changes hands, and the three things it does not prove.
Read →September 2026
Service charges, and Mollak
The annual charge per square foot that runs the building, the law that sets it, the system that collects it, and what it does to a yield.
Read →September 2026
Mollak, Dubai’s service charge system
The Land Department’s system every service charge in Dubai is invoiced and paid through: which door an owner uses, how to pay, what the invoice’s lines mean, what an unpaid balance does at a sale, where a dispute goes, and what became of the owners association in 2019.
Read →September 2026
Snagging and handover
The day an off-plan home stops being a plan: the sequence, the inspection that should come before the keys, what it costs to have it done properly, and what the law gives you afterwards.
Read →September 2026
Form A, Form F, and the EOI
The lettered forms every broker, seller and buyer signs, what each one commits you to, and the developer’s cheque before a launch that is not a form at all.
Read →September 2026
Trakheesi
The Dubai Land Department’s permit system, and the number on every lawful property advert: what it ties together, how a broker gets one, and how to check the one in front of you.
Read →September 2026
RERA, Dubai’s property regulator
The regulator behind the initials on every form, permit and rent calculator in Dubai: what it licenses, what it audits, what it will and will not hear a complaint about, who runs it, and the six-year-old change in the law that most pages on the subject have not noticed.
Read →September 2026
The Dubai Land Department
The department behind every deed, lease, fee and app in Dubai property: what it is, how it is divided between the registrar, the regulator and the tribunal, which of its services you will actually use and what each costs, and where to find it.
Read →September 2026
DXB Interact explained
The transactions site most people find first: what it is and who runs it, what a row on it means, what the register it reads leaves out, and where the same sales are read here tower by tower.
Read →September 2026
The Golden Visa, through property
Ten years’ residence on the strength of a title deed: the two-million threshold and what counts toward it, the conditions on mortgages and off-plan, the application, and the smaller visa beneath it.
Read →September 2026
The Dubai investor visa, through property
Two years’ residence on a title deed, and since April 2026 no minimum price for a sole owner: who qualifies, what the department charges, how to apply and renew, who you can sponsor, the retirement visa beside it, and what a home that carries it sells for, community by community, from the register.
Read →September 2026
Gifting property in Dubai
The family transfer: a parent to a child, a spouse to a spouse, at 0.125% of the home’s value instead of the 4% a sale pays. Who qualifies, what it costs, the morning at the trustee office, what the bank says if there is a loan — and how many Dubai families do it each year, and where, from the register that records every one.
Read →September 2026
Palm Jebel Ali vs Palm Jumeirah
A place against a plan: the first Palm’s every registered sale since 2004, read as the only history the second Palm has — what its apartments were launched at and resell for now, how long that took and where it fell on the way, the second Palm’s launch prices set beside it, and where the record stops.
Read →September 2026
Living here
The everyday admin of a Dubai address, from the meter to the door.
The Dubai housing fee
The line on every DEWA bill that is not electricity or water: five per cent of the rent, paid month by month by whoever lives there. Who pays it, how it is worked out, what it costs in each part of the city from the rents tenants actually agreed, and how to fix it when the figure is wrong.
Read →September 2026
The cost of living in Dubai
Every cost-of-living page guesses the rent. This one reads it from the register: what a home actually let for on 226,427 new leases in the year, by layout and by area, the bills that ride on it, and a budget for a single person, a couple and a family of four — with the rest of the budget printed only where an official source states a figure.
Read →September 2026
Makani numbers
Dubai’s ten-digit address: one number for every building entrance in the city, what it is for, how to find yours, and the three other numbers it gets confused with.
Read →September 2026
Dubai REST, the Dubai Land Department’s app
The Land Department made portable: how to get in, which checks are free without a login, what each service does and the guide that goes with it, what still needs a desk, and what to do when it will not let you in.
Read →September 2026
What Dubai’s area names mean
The Arabic behind the district names — what is known, what is likely and what nobody has shown — then every set of initials expanded, and the names the register keeps beneath the developers’ brands.
Read →September 2026
Chiller-free, and what the chiller costs
The two words that separate two otherwise identical listings: whether the air conditioning is on your bill. What a chiller is, who the three companies are, what they charge, who pays which half and where it is written, and how to price the difference before you sign.
Read →September 2026
DEWA move-in
Opening the electricity and water on a Dubai home: what it needs, what it costs, the housing fee that rides on every bill, and where the account is closed when you leave.
Read →September 2026
The DEWA premise number
DEWA’s number for the home itself, not for you: where it is printed, the two other numbers on the bill it gets mixed up with, why every Ejari and every move-in asks for it first, and who has it when you do not.
Read →September 2026
DEWA move-out
Closing the electricity and water when you leave: the request, the final bill, the clearance certificate everyone downstream asks for, the deposit’s way back to you, and the order that gets both deposits back on time.
Read →September 2026
Moving to Dubai from the UK
The visa and who applies for it, what a home in the Marina, JLT, JVC, Dubai Hills, the Springs or the Ranches really lets for from the register of every tenancy, how buying works from Britain and what you can borrow, the schools, the bills in the order they come, and the UK tax questions with HMRC’s own pages linked — checked on the day it was written.
Read →September 2026
Deciding where, rather than how? The area guides take Dubai community by community, with recorded prices and rents. The calculators do the two sums every buyer ends up doing — a mortgage repayment and a rental yield — with the fee and deposit tables beside them.