Dubai development giant Emaar has refunded an investor who had bought real estate in the Dubai Creek area on the understanding that the property would have views of the Dubai Creek Tower project.
The Dubai Creek Tower was suspended in 2020, and there has been no indication of the construction restarting two years later, although Emaar has yet to officially comment on the status of the development, the company has removed all mentions and rendered images of the tower on its website. Real estate sold in the area was marketed with views of the Dubai Creek Tower, a practice that still continues.
One investor spoken to by Arabian Business confirmed that Emaar refunded their property purchase in July 2021. The investor had purchased the property under the belief that it would have views of the Dubai Creek Tower.
“I was on vacation in Dubai, walking in a shopping mall and I see a beautiful scale model of nice apartments around a big tower, “the new spot for tourists in Dubai after the Burj Khalifa”. The realtor saw that I was around and explained everything about the tower, focusing much less on the apartments, everything was around the tower,” the investor said.
He then went on the purchase a property, but later asked for a refund after development of the tower stopped.
While Emaar agreed to refund the purchase, the investor made a loss of just under $30,000 on the arrangement. The investor had to forfeit the sales commission, land registration waiver, and de-registration charges – at a total cost of $29,560.
“I was expecting around 4 percent Dubai Land, 2 percent sales commission, 5 percent VAT for property registration, maybe some extras to get the maximum 15 percent deduction, not 30 percent,” the investor said.
The investor told Arabian Business that they had first contacted the Dubai Land Department and Emaar’s customer service before resorting to emailing contacts at the property giant directly.
It is not known if other investors have been refunded for similar purchases.
Arabian Business contacted Emaar prior to publication of this article, but has yet to receive comment.
On Tuesday, Arabian Business revealed that real estate brokers continue to use images of the Dubai Creek Tower in their advertising materials, potentially luring investors to purchase property with the promise of views of the project.
The CEO of Fam properties, one of the real estate firms that are using the images, later defended the use of these images.
“All these images are provided by private sellers who have absolute faith in the master community of Dubai Creek Harbour. Our agents are 100 percent in compliance with the marketing agreements with private sellers and landlords of the Creek Harbour community,” Fam Properties CEO Firas Al Msaddi said.
A Reuters report in 2020 said the developer had to suspend work on the tower, as well as on the surrounding residential projects, as Emaar took major blows from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Later that year, Emaar’s founder and then chairman Mohamed Alabbar had confirmed they halted new developments.
“We don’t build anymore. The government entities decided to stop new developments almost a year back, but Covid definitely put the brakes on,” he said at the time, as quoted by Bloomberg.
However, Al Msaddi – who won a real estate award from Emaar in 2017 – said: “Considering Emaar’s track record of constructing the tallest tower in the world, I strongly believe that Emaar will construct and complete the Creek Tower or a better project that is even more attractive and adds more value to the master community as well as enhances the global positioning of Dubai.”
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