Dubai Real Estate Buyers Cant Cancel Contracts Under Law No. 9

A legal expert suggested during the Dubai Society meeting held recently, that the Dubai property buyers cannot cancel their contracts under Law No. 9. However, the legal system has been somewhat sympathetic to the developers and given them the liberty to cancel contracts under this law. This decision was taken to discourage people from taking undue advantage of the down market. The only way now to cancel contracts, by a buyer, is by presenting an effective case in front of the court or approach the Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Authority.

Law No. 13, Article 11 was introduced in 2008 to standardize the procedure of cancelling the purchase of a real estate contract. However, over the time being there have been several debates on the law’s interpretation by the purchaser and the developer. Therefore, to normalize this situation, ruler of Dubai has introduced Law No. 9 to facilitate the procedure of termination of real estate contracts in Dubai. All contracts are legally bound by this new law even if the contract was entered before the law was passed, 30-April’09.

Procedure of Cancellation
If the purchaser fails to abide by the terms of the contract, the developer would have to inform the Land Department. The Land Department will then send a notice to the purchaser asking to fulfill contractual obligations within 30days. If the purchaser fails to do so within the stipulated time, the contract may, then, be cancelled.

ARRA Imposes Dhs 100,000 - Penalty for Non-Registered Developers

ARRA has been established by the government of Ajman in order to sort out and categorize the property sector in this emirate. It is somewhat similar to Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) that handles and controls Dubai property sector just like ARRA will now control the Ajman real estate sector. To begin with, the organization has started the registration of all real estate developers. Recently, ARRA has started imposing penalty of Dhs 100,000 for non-registered developers in Ajman. According to Ajman Real Estate regulatory Agency, the developers who have failed to meet the deadline of 1st May are non-registered developers and they have been fined for that.

May 1st was the first deadline which was set by ARRA last month. The Director General of ARRA, Omar Al Barguthi said, “We have earlier stated this information in news reports and ads in both English and Arabic languages made public in various news papers that developers not registered with ARRA are required to immediately embark on the registration process before May 1st deadline ends. Earlier statements have also warned that necessary measures will be taken against violators.” He further added that they will surely consider the cases those who were prevented due to some genuine reasons to meet the 1st May deadline and they might be exempted from demurrage.

The ads for this has been released in some of the major newspapers stating that May 1st is the closing date for receiving applications for registration of property developers with this government organization of RERA.