Law
No. (13) of 2008
Regulating
the Interim Property Register
in
the Emirate of Dubai[1]
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
We,
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai,
After
perusal of:
Law No. (7)
of 1997 Concerning Land Registration Fees;
Law No. (7)
of 2006 Concerning Real Property Registration in the Emirate of Dubai;
Law No. (8)
of 2007 Concerning Escrow Accounts of Real Estate Development in the Emirate of
Dubai;
Law No.
(27) of 2007 Concerning Jointly Owned Real Property in the Emirate of Dubai;
Regulation
No. (3) of 2006 Determining Areas for Ownership by Non-UAE Nationals in the
Emirate of Dubai; and
Bylaw No. (85)
of 2006 Concerning Real Estate Brokers Register in the Emirate of Dubai,
Do hereby issue this Law.
Article
(1)
This Law will be cited as “Law No. (13) of 2008 Regulating the
Interim Property Register in the Emirate of Dubai”.
Article
(2)
The
following words and expressions will have the meaning indicated opposite each
of them unless the context implies otherwise:
Emirate: |
The Emirate of Dubai. |
Department: |
The Land Department. |
Property Register: |
The property register maintained by the Department. |
Interim Property Register: |
The documents
maintained by the Department in written or electronic format in an electronic
record in which sale contracts, Off-plan Sales, and other off-plan
legal dispositions of real property are registered prior to inclusion in the
Property Register. |
Real Property: |
The land and the fixed structures constructed on it which
may not be moved without damage or alteration of its structure. |
Real Property Unit: |
Any designated part of Real Property including any
part designated as off-plan. |
Off-plan Sale: |
The sale of designated Real Property Units off-plan or
of those which are unfinished. |
Master Developer: |
Any person licensed to conduct the real estate
development business and the sale of Real Property Units to third parties in
the Emirate. |
Sub-developer: |
Any person licensed to conduct real estate
development business and in the sale of Units to third parties and who
undertakes part of the real estate development project of a Master Developer
in accordance with a mutual agreement. |
Real Estate Broker: |
Any person who undertakes the real estate brokering
business in accordance with Bylaw No. (85) of 2006 Regulating the Real Estate
Brokers Register in the Emirate of Dubai. |
Competent Entities: |
The entities authorised to license or register real
estate development projects in the Emirate. |
Article
(3)
1. Any disposition that occurs in respect of any Real Property Unit sold off-plan
will be entered in the Interim Property Register, and any sale or any other
legal disposition that transfers or restricts ownership or any ancillary rights
will be void unless entered in that Register.
2.
Any developer, who disposed of a Real Property
Unit by way of sale or any other disposition that transferred or encumbered a
Real Property Unit before this Law came into force, must apply to the
Department to enter such disposition or encumbrance in the Property Register or
in the Interim Property Register, as the case may be, within a maximum of sixty
(60) days from the date on which this Law comes into force.
Article
(4)
No Master Developer or Sub-developer may commence a project
or dispose of its Real Property Units by way of Off-plan Sale before taking
possession of the land on which the project will be implemented and obtaining
the required approvals from the Competent Entities in the Emirate.
In
all events, the Department must designate the entry of the Real Property as “under
development”.
Article
(5)
The
application to enter a Real Property Unit in the Interim Property Register must
be submitted on the form prepared for such purpose provided that all required information
and documents are provided in accordance with the rules and procedure adopted
by the Department.
Article
(6)
Real
Property Units sold off-plan and entered in the Interim Property Register
maintained by the Department may be disposed of by way of sale, mortgage, or
any other legal disposition.
Article
(7)
No
Master Developer or Sub-developer may charge any fees on the sale, resale, or
on any other legal disposition of the Real Property Units which are completed
or sold off-plan except those administrative costs which are approved by the
Department to be received by the Master Developer or Sub-developer from third
parties.
Article
(8)
Developers must enter completed projects in the Property Register
maintained by the Department once they receive the completion certificate from
the Competent Entities. This includes entering sold Units in the name of
purchasers who fulfilled their contractual obligations in accordance with the
procedure adopted by the Department.
For
the purposes of this Article, the Department may, either upon the request of
the purchaser or upon its own initiative, register in the Property Register in the
name of the purchaser a Real Property Unit entered in the Interim Property Register
which was sold off-plan, provided that the purchaser fulfilled all his
contractual obligations.
Article
(9)
If
a developer wishes to market his project through a Real Estate Broker, the
developer must contract with a certified Real Estate Broker in accordance with
the terms and conditions stipulated by Bylaw No. (85) of 2006 Regulating the
Real Estate Brokers Register in the Emirate of Dubai. The developer must also
register that contract with the Department.
Article
(10)
No
developer or Real Estate Broker may enter into a private sale contract to dispose
of Real Property or Real Property Units by way of Off-plan Sale in projects
which are not approved by the Competent Entities. Any contract which is entered
into prior to obtaining such approval will be null and void.
Article
(11)
1.
If a purchaser breaches any of the terms of the
sale contract of the Real Property Unit concluded with a developer, the
developer must notify the Department of such breach, and the Department must
give a thirty (30) days’ notice to such purchaser, in person, by registered
mail or by electronic mail, to fulfil his contractual obligations.
2.
If the notice period mentioned in paragraph (1)
of this Article expires and the purchaser fails to fulfil his contractual
obligations, the developer may revoke the contract and refund the purchaser after
deducting up to thirty percent (30%) of the payments made by the purchaser.
Article
(12)
The
area of a sold Real Property Unit will be deemed to be correct. However, if any
increase in the area of the Real Property Unit takes place after delivery of
the Unit, the developer may not claim any increase in price in consideration
for such increase. However, if a decrease in the area occurs, then the
developer must compensate the purchaser for such decrease unless such decrease
is inconsequential, in which case the developer is not liable for compensating the
purchaser for such decrease.
Article
(13)
If
the Department proves that a developer or a Real Estate Broker has committed
any act or omission in breach of the provisions of this Law or any other
applicable legislation, the Director General of the Department must prepare the
relevant report and refer the matter to the competent entities for
investigation.
Article
(14)
The
Chairman of the Executive Council will issue the regulations required for the
implementation of the provisions of this Law.
Article
(15)
This Law will be published in the Official
Gazette and will come into force on the day on which it is published.
Mohammed
bin Rashid Al Maktoum
Ruler
of Dubai
Issued in
Dubai on 14 August 2008
Corresponding
to 13 Shaban 1429 A.H.
©2014
The Supreme Legislation Committee in the Emirate of Dubai
[1]Every
effort has been made to produce an accurate and complete English version of
this legislation. However, for the purpose of its interpretation and
application, reference must be made to the original Arabic text. In case of conflict,
the Arabic text will prevail.