DEWA move-out

Move-out is DEWA's name for closing the account on a home, and it is the same thing people search for as a DEWA cancellation or a deactivation: one request, a date, and the electricity and water stop being yours. What follows it is a short chain, and every link in it is something somebody else is waiting for. The final reading produces the final bill; the final bill, paid, produces the clearance certificate; the certificate is what the landlord wants before the tenancy deposit comes back and what the Ejari cancellation is done against; and the closed account is what lets the next tenant, or the buyer, open theirs. The DEWA deposit itself comes back at the end of that chain. The order below is the order the chain runs in, and the reason a move-out started on the last day usually runs a week late.

How to move out of DEWA

In the DEWA app or on its website, choose Move-out; it is also in Dubai Now, and DEWA's customer care line (04 601 9999 on the day this page was written) or a customer happiness centre will lodge it for you. You give the date the supply should end and the account it is for, which is the contract account number on the bill rather than the premise number that names the home, and you say how the deposit should reach you. To our knowledge DEWA charges nothing to close an account.

• Ask for the supply to end on the day you hand over, not before it and not after. An inspection with the lights off is a poor inspection, and every day after the keys go back is a day on your bill
• The request can be lodged ahead of the date, and should be; a move-out asked for on the day is a move-out that may happen tomorrow
• Nobody comes to read the meter. Dubai's meters are smart meters, the final reading is taken remotely on the date, and the supply is switched off the same way
• Moving to another home in Dubai? The app's Move-to does both in one request, the move-out here and the move-in there; check its wording on the deposit on the day, because the service is younger than the two it joins
• A tower on district cooling has a second account to close, with Empower, Emicool or Tabreed, and it is a separate request with its own final bill, its own clearance and its own deposit; chiller-free says which buildings have one and what the disconnection costs

The final bill

The final bill is an ordinary DEWA bill cut short at the move-out date. It holds the electricity and water used since the last bill, at the slab rates the move-in page sets out, with the fuel surcharge on top; the housing fee, which is the municipality's 5% of the annual rent in monthly parts, charged up to the day the account closes and not beyond it; and anything the account already owed. It appears under the account in the app within a few days of the move-out date. The security deposit paid at the move-in is then set against it, and the arithmetic runs either way.

A summer move-out from a large villa can produce a final bill bigger than the deposit, and the account is not closed until the difference is paid, so it is worth looking at the last bill before choosing the date rather than being surprised by the one that follows it. Pay it as you paid the others: in the app, on the website, through a bank's bill-payment menu or an exchange house.

The clearance certificate

The clearance certificate is DEWA's confirmation that the account is closed with nothing owing on it: the final bill settled, the deposit accounted for, the supply ended on a stated date. It is issued once the final bill is paid and can be downloaded from the app or the website under the closed account, or asked for from customer care. It is a page, and it is the page everyone downstream of you wants.

• The landlord asks for it before releasing the tenancy deposit, because it shows the bills are paid and the account is out of your name and ready for the next tenant's
• The Ejari cancellation is done against it: the cancellation is the landlord's job, through the Dubai REST app or a typing centre, and the centres commonly ask to see the DEWA closed before they file it
• A sale's handover asks for it in the same way, from the seller: the buyer's move-in on the title deed waits on the seller's account being closed, and the certificate is the proof
• For you it is the proof of the date the account stopped being yours. An account left open runs on in your name, housing fee included, and the certificate is the answer if a bill for a home you left ever arrives

Getting the deposit back

The deposit paid at the move-in, one figure for an apartment and a larger one for a villa, both on the move-in page, is refunded after the final bill is settled, less anything the bill took from it. It goes back the way the request said: to the bank account whose IBAN you gave when you moved out, or to the card the deposit was paid from. In practice it arrives within days to a couple of weeks of the final bill being paid, and the app shows the refund's status under the closed account; if a month has passed, call. A deposit paid years ago on an account that was never closed is still refundable when it finally is, which is the one reason to close an old account late rather than never.

Two things delay it more than anything else. A refund with no bank details on file goes nowhere until they are given, so check the request carried an IBAN if the deposit was not paid by card. And a final bill left unpaid holds the deposit with it: the refund is the balance after the bill, and there is no balance until the bill is settled.

What the move-out gates

A DEWA premise holds one live account at a time. Until yours is closed, the next tenant's move-in is refused, and it is refused at the worst moment: at the counter, with their movers booked. It is the commonest way a handover goes wrong, and the cure is a move-out requested for the hand-over day and a certificate sent to the landlord the day it appears. The same account is what the rest of the week waits on.

• The tenancy deposit, conventionally 5% of the rent unfurnished and 10% furnished, is returned by the landlord after the inspection and the DEWA clearance, less any agreed deductions; the tenancy contract sets the terms and the Rental Dispute Centre hears a deposit withheld without reason
• The Ejari is cancelled by the landlord once you have handed over and the DEWA is closed; keep a copy, since a property holds one active Ejari at a time and an uncancelled one stays in your name
• The next tenant's Ejari and DEWA both wait on those two cancellations, in that order, which is why a landlord who wants the home relet quickly wants your certificate quickly
• An owner selling closes the account at the handover, and the buyer opens theirs on the deed the same day; selling a home sets out the rest of that morning

The order of things

• Give notice in writing, by the date and in the way the contract says; the eviction notice page covers the tenant's side of leaving
• Agree the inspection and the hand-over day with the landlord
• Request the DEWA move-out for the hand-over day, and the district cooling move-out where there is one
• Hand over the keys and the access cards; the meter is read remotely that day
• Pay the final bill when it appears, if the deposit does not cover it
• Download the clearance certificate and send it to the landlord
• The landlord cancels the Ejari; keep a copy
• The tenancy deposit comes back less any agreed deductions, and the DEWA deposit comes back to the account or card you named

Each step waits on the one before it. Started a week before the hand-over, the whole of it is done inside a fortnight; started on the last day, the deposit conversation begins a week late and the next tenant is standing at the counter.