Law No. (5) of 2015
Concerning Disposition of Lost and
Abandoned
Property in the Emirate of
Dubai[1]
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ
We, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
Ruler of Dubai,
After
perusal of:
Federal
Law No. (5) of 1985 Issuing the Civil Code of the United Arab Emirates and its
amendments;
Federal
Law No. (3) of 1987 Issuing the Penal Code and its amendments;
The Dubai Police Law
of 1966 and its
Implementing Bylaw No. (1) of 1984;
Law
No. (34) of 2008 Concerning Disposition of Impounded Vehicles, Machinery, and
Bikes and its amendments;
Law
No. (35) of 2009 Concerning Management of the Public Funds of the Government of
Dubai and its amendments; and
Local
Order No. (11) of 2003 Concerning Public Health and Community Safety in the
Emirate of Dubai, its Implementing Bylaw, and their amendments,
Do
hereby issue this Law.
This Law will be cited as “Law No. (5) of 2015 Concerning
Disposition of Lost and Abandoned Property in the Emirate of Dubai”.
The following
words and expressions, wherever mentioned in this Law, will have the meaning
indicated opposite each of them unless the context implies otherwise:
|
Emirate:
|
The
Emirate of Dubai. |
|
DP: |
The
Dubai Police. |
|
Commander-in-Chief: |
The commander-in-chief of the DP. |
|
Lost
Property: |
Money
and movables which may be legally possessed; are of inherent value, or of
value for their Owner;
are lost by their
Owner without deliberate intention; and are found within the Emirate. This
does not include stray animals. |
|
Owner: |
The
legal owner or legal
possessor of the Lost Property at the time of losing it. |
|
Finder: |
A
person who finds Lost Property. This does not include any
public servant assigned the task
of searching for lost property as part of his employment duties. |
|
Abandoned
Property: |
Money
and movables which may be legally possessed, are of inherent value; and are intentionally left behind by their
owner or legal possessor.
This does not include stray animals. |
a. Subject
to criminal liability, a Finder must hand in the Lost Property to the DP within
a maximum period of forty-eight (48) hours from the time of finding it, and must not dispose of it or possess it with the intention of
acquiring ownership.
b. The Lost
Property will be received by the DP pursuant
to
a receiving report which contains the full description, and the condition, of
the Lost Property; the details of the Finder; and any other information
specified by the DP.
For the purposes
of this Law, the DP will have the duties and powers to:
1. receive
reports concerning the loss of property and movables within the Emirate;
2. receive
Lost Property and Abandoned Property and safekeep them in a suitable place;
3. maintain
special records of the
details and description of Lost Property and Abandoned Property; the date and
time of finding or receiving them; the place where they are found or abandoned; the details of Finders; and any other information specified by the DP;
4. announce
that Lost Property is in the DP's custody in the manner it deems appropriate;
5. estimate
the cost of safekeeping,
and making announcements on, Lost Property;
6. dispose
of Lost Property and Abandoned Property in accordance with the provisions of
this Law and the resolutions issued in pursuance hereof; and
7. perform
any other duties required for the implementation of the provisions of this Law.
a. The DP
will retain Lost Property for a period of not less than one (1) year from the date of finding it. Where this period lapses without
identifying its Owner and without the Finder claiming it
in
accordance with the provisions of this Law, the DP may sell the Lost Property in accordance with the rules and
procedures it adopts in this respect. The price of sale must be deposited in trust with the public treasury of the
Government of Dubai.
b. The price of sale of Lost Property will be
paid to the Public Treasury of the
Government of Dubai if its Owner
does not claim that price within (15) fifteen years from the date of sale.
c. Notwithstanding
the period stated in paragraph (a) of this Article, the DP may, at any time,
sell Lost Property and deposit its price in trust with the Public Treasury of the Government
of Dubai if:
1. it is
perishable, or
prone to damage or impairment;
2. the cost
of safekeeping the Lost Property exceeds
its value; or
3. it is of
insignificant value.
d. Where
the period stated in paragraph (a) of this Article lapses without identifying the Owner of Lost Property that contains private photographs or
information, the DP must handle it in the manner it deems appropriate, or else the Lost Property must be destroyed.
e. Where
Lost Property cannot be sold due to
its nature or insignificant value, the DP may dispose of it in the manner it
deems appropriate, including by
way of donation
of the same to
charities, museums, public libraries, and other entities.
a. An Owner
has the right to reclaim his Lost
Property before it
is disposed of by the DP.
b. An Owner
may claim the sale
price of his Lost Property within
the period mentioned in paragraph
(b) of Article
(5) of this Law where it has been sold by the DP.
c. Where
the Lost Property is disposed of without consideration in accordance with paragraph (e) of Article (5) of this Law, its Owner will have the
right to trace it into the hands of third parties.
d. Where
more than one person claims the ownership
of Lost Property, it will be delivered, or its price be paid, to the person in whose favour the competent court delivers a final
judgement to this effect.
e. In the
absence of a legitimate excuse, no claim for Lost Property or its price may be heard after the lapse of (15)
fifteen years from the date of finding
it.
f. The Lost
Property or its price will be
delivered to the Owner after payment of the cost of safekeeping and announcing it, and the DP's estimation of this cost will be deemed final.
a. Subject
to the rules and conditions prescribed by the relevant resolution of the Commander-in-Chief,
a Finder may be granted any of the following:
1.
a certificate of appreciation from the DP in recognition of his honesty; or
2.
a financial reward amounting to (10%)
of the value of the Lost Property,
but
not exceeding fifty thousand dirhams (AED 50,000). This reward will be deducted from the value of the Lost
Property regardless of whether
its Owner claims it or
not.
b. A Finder
may claim to retain the Lost
Property one (1) year after the date of finding it if the Lost Property Owner is not found, in accordance with
the relevant rules and guarantees prescribed by the Commander-in-Chief.
c. A Finder
must maintain the Lost Property delivered to him
by the DP and return it to its Owner when requested.
a. The DP
will dispose of the
property and items listed below, in accordance with the provisions of this Law,
without the need to announce them or wait for the period referred to in paragraph (a) of Article (5) of this
Law to lapse:
1. property
and items which are prohibited from being carried or shipped on board aircraft,
trains, ships, and other means of public transport; and which are abandoned by their
owners at airports, stations, ports, and border crossing points;
2. property
and items which are abandoned
by inmates of punitive and correctional institutions and which remain unclaimed
by these persons for
sixty (60) days after the date of their release;
3. property
and items which are abandoned
by their owners in public places and at government entities and which remain unclaimed for sixty (60) days after they are abandoned; and
4. impounded or seized property and items in respect of which
a release or cancellation of seizure
decision is issued by the competent entity, and which remain unclaimed by their owners for sixty (60) days after the date of that decision.
b. The DP
will issue a report containing the description of the property and items
stated in paragraph (a) of this Article, the entity from which they are
received, and any other information the
DP
deems important to record.
c. The price of sale of the property and items
referred to in paragraph (a) of this Article will be paid to the public treasury of the
Government of Dubai.
All government
entities in the Emirate must fully
cooperate and coordinate with
the DP to enable it to implement
the provisions of this Law.
This includes handing in to
the DP any Lost Property or Abandoned Property these entities may find.
The Commander-in-Chief
will issue the resolutions required for the implementation of this Law.
Any provision in
any other legislation will be repealed to the extent that it contradicts the
provisions of this Law.
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 11 April 2015
Corresponding to 22 Jumada al-Thaniyah 1436 A.H.
©2020 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.