RERA Lawyer Dubai

No. A regulator supervises licensed parties and can take regulatory action against their conduct; it does not award compensation, order a property to be transferred, determine a contractual dispute or set aside an agreement. Recovering money is a claim — before the Dubai Courts, the Rental Disputes Centre, or an arbitral tribunal where the contract validly provides for it. Some matters justify both a complaint and a claim, run deliberately; what does not work is filing a complaint and expecting a financial recovery from it.

Conduct of that kind is capable of being a regulatory matter, and where it caused you loss it is also a claim. Before complaining, assemble the broker's and brokerage's registration details and the listing as published; every message and email in full; the marketing material and floor plans relied on; anything you signed including the reservation form; the payment record showing who was actually paid; and a dated chronology. A complaint supported by a documented chronology is treated very differently from one that consists of a narrative.

No. Tenancy disputes in Dubai fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Rental Disputes Centre under Article 6 of Decree No. 26 of 2013, subject to the exclusions that decree itself sets out. What sits on the regulatory side is the rent index used in assessing whether an increase is permitted. A dispute about the increase itself is heard by the RDC.

By Decree No. 43 of 2013, which sets increase bands according to how far the current rent sits below the average for comparable units under the index. Since January 2025 the Dubai Land Department has delivered this through the Smart Rental Index. Two things decide most rent increase questions: the index determines what is permitted rather than the landlord's expectation, and notice is a separate requirement — under Article 14 of Law No. 26 of 2007 as amended, a party wishing to amend the terms must notify the other at least ninety days before expiry unless the parties agreed otherwise.

That the developer and the specific project are registered, and that there is a project escrow account — before paying anything. Dubai Law No. 8 of 2007 requires buyer payments in registered projects to go into the project escrow account, so a request to pay a developer directly or into any other account is both a warning sign for you and a regulatory issue. Also verify that your own interest has been recorded in the Interim Real Property Register, since under Article 3 of Dubai Law No. 13 of 2008 an unregistered disposition of an off-plan unit is void.

Not primarily. Where a developer defaults or a project stops, Article 11 of Dubai Law No. 13 of 2008 as replaced by Law No. 19 of 2017 sets out a defined Dubai Land Department procedure — notification, verification, a notice period, mediation and certification of the project's completion percentage — rather than leaving buyers to an ordinary complaint or an ordinary claim. Treating it as either wastes months.

Start by establishing the basis of the charge: what it is levied under, whether it was approved through the applicable process, and whether the budget and the demand match. Owners are entitled to see those documents, and a large share of service charge complaints resolve once they are produced. Where the basis of the charge is genuinely the issue, the regulatory route is available; where the complaint is about the quality of services, it is usually a management matter first. Litigating a service charge without testing whether it was properly approved generally costs more than the charge.

Yes, and this catches sellers out. Outstanding service charges can prevent the No Objection Certificate that a transfer requires, which means the transaction cannot complete at the Land Department until they are cleared. Whoever is to clear them, and by when, should be written into the sale contract rather than discovered at the transfer appointment.

No, and treating it as one sends people to the wrong forum. A failure to register, a licensing breach or a conduct violation is a matter for the regulator. Conduct becomes criminal only where the penal law defines it as an offence — typically forgery, deception, or dealing with property or money the person knew they had no right to deal with. Where a property matter does carry a genuine criminal element, it is run alongside the civil claim and the registry steps rather than instead of them.

We do not publish timescales for regulatory action, and we would be cautious about any figure you find elsewhere. A complaint also cannot be relied on to move at the pace of your transaction. The practical implication is that where you have a claim as well as a complaint, the claim should not be left to drift while the complaint runs — the two are progressed together.

No. We do not predict the outcome of a regulatory complaint, and we do not suggest that we can influence how the Dubai Land Department, RERA, the Rental Disputes Centre or any court approaches a matter. What we do is make sure the complaint is documented, accurate and directed at conduct actually within the regulator's remit — and that anything that belongs in a claim is not left sitting in a complaint.

Yes — the regulatory boundary works the same way in both directions, and landlords deal with brokers, owners' associations and the rent index just as tenants do. For the tenancy relationship itself, see our landlord matters page and, for the forum, rental disputes and the Rental Disputes Centre.