7 mins to read,
April 15th, 2020
In this video, you will hear insights and Q & A with Hiba Jaber, Senior Adviser & Trainer at the Dubai Real Estate Institute.
- Dubai Real Estate Institute
Watch this recording of our Webinar from 14 April 2020 to get the latest market data insights from Property Finder.
For the past 10 years, Hiba has been a Consultant and Instructor at Dubai Real Estate Institute (DREI) conducting real estate sales and leasing brokerage laws and regulations training in Dubai, Sharjah and Bahrain. Hiba is a member with the National Association of Realtors (NAR), an International Realtor Member, and holds the Certified Real Estate Brokerage Manager (CRB) and Accredited Buyer’s Representative (ABR) designations.
Regarding DLD’s 4 per cent transaction fee, are there any plans from DLD to either reduce the transaction fee or waive it completely?
The answer is that there is not, having said that, and according to articles that have been published, some of the initiatives that DIFC see is considering included reducing its ownership transfer fees from 5 to 4 per cent for any property sale that occurs within the authorised three months period. So if ownership transfers are registered at DIFC within that 30-day window at the end of the three months period of April 1st through June 30th, 2020. Having said that, DLD has waived that late registration fees fine from mid-March 2020 till the end of May 2020, there might be other incentives for the sector but for now, nothing has been officially announced.
Are transactions currently being transferred today?
As a matter of fact, there is a misconception that DLD is closed, but it is open. Transactions and sales transfers are being done. All DLD services are available remotely with a 100 per cent reliability.
If someone needs more information on how to connect or how is the process happening during this unusual time, they can call their hotline which is 8004488 and visit their website. The digital and official way of transferring properties will be shared on DLD & DREI social channels. So I’m encouraging everyone who has not done so yet to follow the Dubai Land Department and the Dubai Real Estate Institute be it on Instagram LinkedIn just to make sure that they are connected.
If a tenant has put a deposit down on a new property and is unable to move, can they withdraw from the new property and stay in the current property? And also, is it true that people are unable to move currently?
The laws have been changed but I’m going to answer it to the best of my ability and just from the way I see things. Tenants and landlords should be talking to one another right and they should try to resolve this issue in an amicable way. If the property that this tenant is moving from is still vacant and is available, talk to your current landlord, ask him/her if you could stay for a couple of extra months and at the same time talk to the new landlord and try to negotiate the same.
DLD supported His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s directive to stop the rental evictions of houses and commercial establishments, for which a decision was issued to close them due to non-payment of funds during the months of March and April. This was supported by the Rental Disputes Committee “RTC”, which is now is offering remote litigation service. This service allows the parties to rental disputes or their representatives to attend the hearing before the judge electronically. RDC has warned landlords against taking matters into their own hands by disconnecting the tenant’s DEWA, for example. They are not allowed to do so under any circumstances any disputes in the part between the parties. So I’m trying to say is if they can’t reach an amicable decision if they can’t reach a happy medium for the two parties, they should refer their case to RDC for the judge to look into this matter review the facts and rule accordingly.
And how do they get to RDC online right now?
Visit the RDC website and it takes them through a step-by-step process on how to have their case heard electronically.
Does the tenant have the right to demand to freeze the rent?
So the actual laws have not changed right, ideally, in terms of rental increases as we know, it’s asked for the rental index provided that the landlord gives at least three months (90 days) notice prior to the expiry of the rental agreement. So there’s nothing that has changed as far as this law is concerned. This is where I go back and say how important it is for the two parties, landlords and tenants, to talk to one another and try to help one another during this time. This is you know, what we’re witnessing is not exclusive to Dubai. What we’re witnessing is not exclusive to the UAE or to the rental market. This is something that we as humans are witnessing all over the world. I think it’s best for us to try to work together to try to solve the issue.
You in a way that is agreeable to both parties. Sometimes I get a lot of people asking about the rights of the tenant when we really don’t look on the other side as well. We have landlords that potentially have lost their job themselves or maybe have encountered a freeze on their salaries and they are depending on the rental income coming from that rented property. So we also have to consider their position as well.
And this is where I say again, it’s not about what do we have here in place as laws, but let’s try to work together as humans. Try to look into these matters, try to solve them and happy way. If not, of course, they have to resort to RDC.
Agents told us that it is sometimes difficult to register form F. Sometimes the seller is not registered in a system which will need to be done first, and it’s just not being successful for the agents. So during this time will DLD accept a digital signature on form F, A and B or a soft copy?
I just want to highlight as to why it’s been a hassle for Brokers to update or to change the seller’s information once they input it into the system through the Brokers app, and this is partially to avoid fraud. What we have witnessed is some agents are adding their own phone numbers rather than the sellers’ information and as such basically blocking the property so in a way accepting the sale of the property on behalf of the seller when they’re really not in a position to do so.
If there is a legit request and there is a need for the agents to change the data or the details of the seller, they can contact ERES. They can use to rectify this issue by emailing support@eres.ae. If for whatever reason you can’t reach them or if you don’t hear back from them, I have no issues with them trying to reach out to me personally and I’ll try to help them in any way I can.
Q re transferring a property, so some are saying that no new title deeds have been issued during this time. Can you please clarify this because obviously we are saying transactions happen on a daily basis?
DLD is still working remotely, registration trustees are connecting with DLD via Brokers app and Dubai REST app is also being used.
The only thing is maybe there are delays considering that we’re all in this together. I would appreciate a little bit of patience in terms of when things can get done but things are operating and everybody’s doing the best they can in order to facilitate sales transactions.
Lynnette’s comment {In April as of yesterday, we’ve had 585 off-plan transactions and 198 secondary transactions, which brings us to a total of 783. Just today as of right now, we’ve had 60 transactions which bring the total to 245 transactions for this week. So that’s the latest data from Dubai Land Department.}
Currently, Tenancy Contracts need to be physically signed. During these times, will a digitally signed tenancy agreement be accepted?
Ejari registration, renewal and cancellation processes through RT offices have been placed on hold. In the meantime, Property Management Companies / Landlords can register/renew/cancel Ejari through their Ejari system/ DLD’s Dubai REST SMART APP. Ejari contracts are digitally signed by request and response between parties ( physical signatures are not required).
MOI has halted and is backlogged with issuing employee cards. Will, RERA accept application form and employee card to issue the broker card?
I’ll tell you what I’ve heard. I’ve heard that if you do approach RERA, there are certain undertakings or forms that you would have to fill out, they might facilitate you going ahead and getting your certification card, provided that you’ve basically met all the other requirements. Eg. have you taken the course, have you gotten the completion certificate or the attendance certificate of the online course…So there’s a lot of steps before you reach that specific point. But I’ve also heard that the Ministry of Labour is actually issuing Labour approval. (I think there’s just that backlog or maybe things are not being done as quickly as we were used to having it being done in Dubai…) As we’re all in this together, so we just have to be patient.
I have to say here in the UAE, we’re super lucky to have a government that is very tech-savvy and have most of their services online. I mean, the rest rests of the world is clearly suffering.
What is DREI doing during this time to support real estate professionals?
1. We moved the most important courses online, which are the certification courses. So if you’re a new broker or if you’re renewing your license, what you can do is to take the online course. Upon completion of the course, you will get your Certificate of Attendance, which is enough for you to use for RERA’s renewal of license or to issue you a new Brokers card.
The exam will be done for those who need to take an exam because again, there’s a difference between if you have more than five certificates or less than five certificate sort of a new broker. Hopefully starting July we go back to offering the exam you take the exam you have about three months to complete it. Of course, we always urge and recommend for everyone to take a curse the court at the test sooner rather than late, and then you’ll be good to go.
Other than that, we’ve also again, I know you’ve been following me on LinkedIn and following Dubai Real Estate Institute on LinkedIn, we’ve had many educational and informative video sessions. We’ve done them in English and working also to do them in Arabic for our Arabic speakers. We’ve released two videos so far. So just keep watching that space for more information to come.
And, of course, being with you today on the webinar is another initiative supported by the DREI to try to bring transparency and awareness and education to the market in any way we can.
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