The Dubai government’s Land Department has created a dedicated division to regulate the private real estate rental market in the city.
The Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) will be an advisory body, with legal enforcement and legislative responsibility remaining with the Dubai Land Department.
According to a Gulf News report, the RERA’s first order of business is to ensure that all rental units in Dubai are registered with the authority.
This will force all buy-to-let homeowners to log details of their properties including the number of tenants, the rental income and the duration of the tenancy agreement.
It is expected to become illegal to rent our properties without authorisation from RERA.
Details are yet to be finalised, but sources suggest that RERA will draw up regulations governing the number of tenants that can legally be housed within properties of varying size and type.
The move will tackle the problem of apartments and villas designed for an average family being rented out to sometimes dozens of low paid workers.
“Eventually we want to create more regulation and transparency in the rental market, which will give confidence to tenants,” Mohammad Sultan Thani, Director of Development and Marketing Administration at the Land Department, told Gulf News.
RERA is working on templates for rental contracts that will simplify the process of agreeing terms between landlords and tenants. These templates will allow the authority to guide both parties on rent caps, the number of tenants per property, rights for both tenants and landlords, and other areas that have become significant areas of dispute since real estate laws have been relaxed over the past five years.
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