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Dubai Property Law

  • The foreigners will have the right to lease or purchase the land, after getting approval from the three master-developers, Emmar, Al Nakheel, and Dubai Properties.

  • A land will be registered in the name of a foreigner only after the developers submit a no-objection letter, stating that all the payments for the transaction have been made in full.

  • There are three kinds of ownership proposed in the legislation: freehold, usufruct, and common hold. The owner will have complete ownership rights over a free hold property and the building in this case will be in the owner's name.

  • The second category is usufruct or long-term lease. The law characterizes 'usufruct' as the right to use another's property short of destruction or waste of its substance. The right of usufruct, as per the law, should not be for less than five years. This will most probably be a long-term lease whose maximum validity period will range from anywhere between 50 to 99 years.

  • Commonhold allows leaseholders to dispense with their landlord and obtain a share of the freehold.

  • The registration fee for the transaction will be two per cent of the total value of the property, of which 1.5 per cent has to be paid by the purchaser and the rest by the seller. After the payment of the whole amount, the owner is free to either bequeath the property or sell it.

  • The most important and probably extremely consequential component of the law is the clause that those who already purchased property will have to legalize their purchase by registering it with the authorities.  Another important feature of the law is the recognition of the land development lease.

  • The confidence of the investors and buyers as the new Dubai property law ascertains on them the 100% foreign ownership for the expatriates.

  • More banks will begin the facility of home finance as there is a guarantee in the ownership of the properties.

  • The law also specifies the functions and responsibilities of the Department of Land and Property, which has so far been doing all the work by virtue of practice, sans legal clarity. As per the law, the department will determine the survey areas, approve the land map and the fees for the services provided by the department.