Dubai eyes new law to protect property investors - paper

Posted by: Jesus of Dubai Friday, 4 December 2009 7:27 PM[UAE]

I could not ever imagine investing in the UAE again. A case of once bitten... THere are other countries where the developers are bound by law to deliver on time and the build quality is 10 times better than we are used to getting in the UAE. Our money goes to South East Asia.

Posted by: Nacheez Wednesday, 2 December 2009 4:39 PM[UAE]

I agree with Hamid about the possible immediate fixes. Another obvious one is the 5% property tax collected by DEWA on behalf of the Municipality, while all services are being provided by the developers like Nakheel, Emmar and UP, in lieu of the service fee. It has to be and 'Either/OR' case. Not both!!

Posted by: Hamid Sunday, 29 November 2009 2:15 AM[UAE]

Following are the issues that RERA needs to fix immediately, since they are easy to fix yet essential: 1 - Maintenance fees fiasco, its turning into daylight robbery and windfall to developers at severe and unbearable burden on long term investors. It must be stopped. Communities must be able to obtain bids from competitive management companies, which I believe will bring the Maintenance fees from average of 20 Dhs/sqf currently to about 6 to 9 Dhs/sqf 2- The ownership of common areas must be either be given to property owners of the community or be severely regulated. There is a huge room for abuse and some developers are already abusing it. For example, I know some for fact are selling the visitor parking! 3- Developer must not be able to collect payments if they are behind. Some have received 60% and they haven't even begun to built and are still demanding payments! Instead, they need to be bound by mandatory late delivery fees, regardless of their contracts. 4- Escrow accounts must be only withdrawn with permision of RERA according to work progress. This time not in theory, but in action. 5- Real Estate agents must be regulated. They need to stop double dealing, like demanding extra money from the buyer or seller in addition to their commission, for their help in reaping off the buyer or seller. They, also, need to be bonded, and responsible for investor loss, if they mess and make a bad deal (for example, seller was not the owner, or the Landlord was not the owner and was not authorize to lease, and etc.) The above should be fairly simple to fix and regulate. I am surprised why RERA has not fixed them already. The difficult issues, are the case were the developer puts a project permanently on "hold" and refuse to return the investor's money back. How to get the investor money back or give him his property without pushing the already weak developer into insolvency, where no on will win. Now that is the challenge.

Posted by: Trust Sunday, 29 November 2009 12:25 AM[UAE] - UAE

UAE is losing the trust of the investors. Only the developers have rights and RERA. As a foreign investor I lost my everything. Trust accounts are empty. I will never come again to invest.

Posted by: Well Wisher Saturday, 28 November 2009 6:19 PM[UAE]

Existing investors in Dubai real estate have been severely impacted due to the inordinate delays in the delivery of properties beyond the original stipulated date - (a) the interest cost on mortgage finance has increased substantially (b) the opportunity to rent out the properties and use the rental income to service the mortgage debt has been lost. The new law must address point (a) above. This can be achieved by subsidising the incremental interest cost by the financier and the developer collectively. In these difficult times, all stakeholders need to co-operate.