Dubai renting apartments

There are many landlords who own apartments in Dubai. Since they live outside the UAE, they delegate the renting and management to a real estate agency.

The real estate agencies convince the landlord to sign blank contract forms to allow the estate agency to sublease the apartments to tenants on the landlord's behalf.

The land lord thinks that by signing the blank agreement, all the real estate can do is rent the apartment.

It has come to our attention that some real estate agencies are following the following practice based on getting blank contract forms signed.

 
Get the land lord to sign two blank contract forms.
Suppose it is 1st of January 2011. So they shall tell the land lord that they are looking for a tenant.
They find a tenant on the same day and sign a contract from 1 Jan 2011 to 31 Dec 2011 with the tenant.
They tell the land lord they are still have not found tenant.
After a month they tell the land lord they have a tenant and the contract shall be from 1 feb 2011 to 31 Jan 2012.
The make a copy of this second contract and send the copy to the land lord.
The real estate takes a security deposit. Does not provide a receipt to the tenant and does not mention the amount of security deposit in the contract copy made for the tenant.
On 1 jan 2012 the real estate tells the tenant to vacate the premises or make a new contract. The security deposit is not refundable on the basis of several excuses which include. Two months notice required for vacating. This is not applicable because the contract with the tenant is over. The landlord has no idea what is going on in Dubai so shall not be saying anything. The second reason for losing the security deposit is that there are some repairs which the real estate needs to do and the tenant is not allowed to do them according to their copy of the contract.

The tenant is asked to vacate the place and another tenant is allowed to come in. The new contract with the second tenant can be from 1 Jan 2012 to 31 Dec 2012 while the land lord is given another (empty apartment excuse) and the land lord is given a new contract which is from 1 mar 2012 to 28 feb 2013.

This process repeats until some tenant gets frustrated and gets in touch with the land lord.

The advice is as follows :
Do not sign blank contract forms.
Ask the real estate company to provide contact numbers of all tenants.
Call every month to the tenant or have someone visit the apartment to ask questions.
Do not depend on the real estate companies to much.
You can sign your own contracts and get them registered with RERA for free.
When there is a problem, the land lord and the tenant are the ones who shall be meeting in court anyway.


From : http://www.dubai.ae/en.portal?topic,Article_000870,1,&_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=home

Register your rental contract in Dubai

The Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) of Land Department has made it mandatory for all rental contracts to be registered through its arm called Ejari (Arabic for ‘my rent’). Rental contracts can be registered by either the landlord or the tenant, or both parties without the need to consult each other.

One of the major benefits of registering your rental contract is that it is currently free of cost to register. Also, in case of any dispute between tenant and landlord, you will need to approach the Rent Committee at Dubai Municipality, who now require a registered rental contract from RERA, before settling the dispute.

Requirements
Lease contract form to be filled in. Sample form can be downloaded from www.ejari.ae. You must fill in your passport, ID & visa number. You must also have knowledge of your DEWA consumer number, plot and community address.

Registration Fee
Currently free

Procedure
Download a sample lease contract from www.ejari.ae, fill up details and visit Ejari, located on the Ground Floor of Land Department in Deira, Dubai. See location map.

For more information, please visit www.ejari.ae or call 04-2221112.


From : http://www.ejari.ae/PublicPages/abouteres.aspx


Emirates Real Estate Solutions (ERES) is a joint venture company between DATEL Software and Systems LLC and Dubai Government’s Dubai Land Department (DLD) as part of a government initiative to support real estate industry stakeholders to readily comply with and benefit from the regulations developed by government along with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) to create uniform standards for the sector. In addition ERES develop market and sell products and services to the Real Estate and Property Management industries.

ERES was established with a simple vision to build a trusted regulatory community for the real estate industry using innovative technologies. This means using cutting-edge technology-based solutions as a cornerstone for building a centralized platform for all real estate related transactions and the administrative details that accompany them.

ERES offers innovative and creative IT solutions built on DLD best practices over the last fifty years along with RERA, which add more efficiency and transparency to the real estate marketplace.

ERES solutions provides developers, private landlords, real estate owners and tenants with the tools and information necessary for the proper and sound execution of all transactions related to real estate by utilizing the power of technology to cover multiple platforms.