Form A, Form F, and the EOI

A Dubai sale runs on a small set of standard forms that the Real Estate Regulatory Agency wrote so that every broker, seller and buyer signs the same thing. They are lettered, and people use the letters: Form A to list a home, Form B to look for one, Form F to agree the sale, Form I when two brokers share it. An EOI is something else again, the cheque a developer takes before a launch. Here is what each is, who signs it, and what it commits you to.

Form A: the listing agreement

Nothing in Dubai can be advertised without one. A seller signs Form A to appoint a broker, and the form records the price, the commission, conventionally 2% of the price, the term, commonly three months, and whether the appointment is exclusive. It is signed digitally through the department's Dubai REST app, which is also where the broker obtains the Trakheesi permit number that every listing must carry on every portal. One exclusive Form A at a time per property: a seller who has signed one cannot sign another until it ends, or is ended with a Form U. A broker who advertises a home without one is advertising something they have no right to sell.

Form B: the buyer's agreement

The mirror of Form A, signed by a buyer to appoint a broker to find them a home. It records what they are looking for and the commission they will pay, conventionally 2% plus VAT, and it makes the broker theirs, so that a home found through that broker is bought through them. Most buyers sign one at the first viewing or not at all, and a broker who asks for one is doing the paperwork properly.

Form F: the sale contract

The document the whole transaction hangs on, once called the memorandum of understanding and still called the MOU by most of the market. Buyer and seller sign it, with their brokers, and it records the price, the deposit, conventionally 10% by cheque held by the broker or the trustee office, the completion date, the conditions the sale depends on, such as a mortgage approval or the developer's no-objection certificate, and what each side forfeits if they fail to complete, which is normally the deposit. It is signed on Dubai REST, and the registration trustee transfers the title on the strength of it. The cost of buying sets out what is paid on the day it completes.

Form I: broker to broker

When one broker has the seller and another has the buyer, the two sign Form I to agree the split of the commission before either shows the home. Buyers and sellers rarely see it and never sign it, but it is the reason a viewing arranged through two agencies runs smoothly, or does not.

The EOI

An expression of interest is not a RERA form at all. Before a launch, a developer takes a sum from would-be buyers, commonly tens of thousands of dirhams, sometimes more for a villa, to rank them for the day units are released; on launch day the earliest EOIs choose first. It is refundable if you buy nothing, on the developer's terms, and those terms are what to read, because the refund can take weeks and some are conditional. It converts to the booking deposit if you do buy. It does not reserve a specific unit, only a place in the queue, and it should be paid to the developer's account, never to a broker's own. What follows a booking is the payment plan, the escrow, and Oqood, the register the sale goes on; off-plan or resale sets that purchase beside a completed one.

What none of them replace

A seller's title deed, verified; a developer's project, registered with RERA; and a broker's licence, which is on the department's register and on their card. The forms make a sale orderly. The checks make it safe.