The title deed

A title deed in Dubai is the Dubai Land Department's certificate of ownership: one page, in Arabic and English, naming the owner, the property, its plot and its registered area, under the department's seal. It is what changes hands at the trustee office, what a bank takes its charge over, what a visa application asks for, and what a seller has to show before anyone should write a deposit cheque. The deed has been an electronic record since the department went digital, and the paper one is a print of it, which is what makes it checkable in a minute.

What is on it

• The property: its type, the community and building, the unit number, and the plot number the building stands on
• The area, in square metres and square feet, as registered; for an apartment the internal area, for a villa the plot and the built area
• The owner or owners, and each one's share where there is more than one
• The certificate number and the date of issue
• Any registered mortgage, which the department's record carries alongside the deed

Three numbers get confused on a Dubai property and the deed carries one of them. The plot number is the land parcel, from the department. The DEWA premise number is the meter. The Makani number is the door. A deed names the plot.

How to verify one

The department's Dubai REST app carries a verification service. Enter the certificate number and the year from the deed, choose the property type, and it returns the record the deed belongs to, so you can check the property and the owner's name against the paper in front of you. Newer deeds carry a QR code that opens the same check. It is free, it takes a minute, and it is the first thing to do when a seller produces a deed, before a deposit is discussed. The registration trustee runs the same check at transfer, but by then the deposit has long since been paid.

What to compare:

• The owner's name on the deed against the seller's passport, exactly, and if the seller is acting through a power of attorney, that the attorney document is notarised and current, which the notary's own record confirms
• The unit and plot numbers against the property you viewed, and the area against what the listing claimed
• The date of issue against the seller's story: a deed issued last month for a home they say they have owned for years is a question, not a disqualification
• The mortgage: a charge on the record means a bank has to be paid off at completion, and the seller's bank issues a liability letter with the figure

Kinds of title

Most of what foreigners buy in Dubai is freehold, in the areas designated for foreign ownership, and the deed says so. Some areas and buildings are leasehold, a long lease of up to ninety-nine years that is registered and traded like ownership, and the deed says that too, with the term. Joint owners appear on one deed with their shares. An off-plan purchase has no deed yet: it sits on Oqood, the interim register, and converts to a deed at handover.

Getting a copy, or a replacement

An owner can download the electronic deed at any time from the Dubai REST app; a buyer who has just completed receives it the same afternoon. A lost paper deed is replaced through the department, for a fee, on the owner's application, and since the record is electronic nothing has actually been lost. The trustee office issues the new owner's deed at transfer and cancels the old one in the same act.

What it is not

It is not proof that the home is empty: a tenancy is on Ejari, not on the deed, and a home bought with a tenant in it is bought with the tenant. It is not proof that the service charges are paid; that is the developer's no-objection certificate, without which the trustee will not transfer. And it is not a survey: the area is the registered area, which for an older building can differ from what a tape measure finds, and the sale contract is what says whether that matters. The cost of buying has the transfer itself, fee by fee.