Off-plan purchase in Dubai, step by step: registration, fees, resale

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Kooky

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An off-plan purchase in Dubai is a sequence, not a single signature. A buyer looks at a project, signs a contract with the developer, sees that contract entered in a register kept by the Dubai Land Department, pays instalments over the months of construction, and may sell the unit on before the building is finished. Each of those moments has a rule behind it, and most of them leave the buyer holding a document.

This guide follows that sequence from the buyer's side. It draws on three kinds of official material, all from the emirate of Dubai: the Land Department's service page for registering an initial sale, the Department's published answers to frequently asked questions, and three texts on the Dubai Legislation Portal, namely Law No. (13) of 2008 on the Interim Property Register, its implementing by-law, Executive Council Resolution No. (6) of 2010, and Law No. (8) of 2007 on escrow accounts. For each step it says what the buyer does, what is paid and by whom, and what comes back. Where those pages stay silent, as they do on the reservation form, the guide says so.

Dubai Land Department, service page "Request to register the initial sale" and frequently asked questions, read on 10 October 2026.

The path in five steps

The Land Department uses two names for the same record. Law No. (13) of 2008 calls it the Interim Property Register: the Department's written or electronic record in which off-plan sales and other dealings with off-plan units are entered before they reach the Property Register. The Department's service page calls it the provisional register, and its answers to frequently asked questions speak of initial registration, defined there as registering real estate sales contracts and other legal actions off-plan. The portal through which the entry is made is Oqood.

An off-plan sale, in the words of the 2008 law, is the sale of designated units before completion, or of units that are still unfinished. The five steps below are the order this guide follows.

The fifth step has two branches. This guide follows the resale branch in detail and only sketches the completion branch.

Before signing: the project and its completion percentage

The first thing the law gives a buyer is a way to tell a project that may be sold from one that may not. Article 4 of the 2008 law bars a developer from starting a project or selling off-plan before it has possession of the land and the approvals required from the competent entities. The by-law makes the list concrete in its own Article 4: the developer must have taken possession of the land and received its demarcation certificate, must have actual control of the land, and must hold the approvals needed to start.

The consequence of selling too early is stated twice. Article 10 of the law says a contract made for an off-plan unit before the project is approved is null and void. Article 11 of the by-law says an off-plan sale made before the project's start is approved and the project is registered with the Department is void. The Department's answers to frequently asked questions put the same point from the developer's side: a new project can be launched only after its registration and accreditation are complete, and the accreditation certificate is issued through Oqood.

For a buyer, the practical question is how to see where a project stands. The Department's answers say that a project's status can be checked by plot number, project number or project name, and that the result shows the completion percentage and the project's status. They add that investors can follow completion percentages on the Department's project tracking service or its smart application. The dedicated service page for that enquiry could not be opened for this guide, so the description here is the one given in the published answers.

Two further traces exist in the registers. Under Article 5 of the by-law, the Department records on the folio of the land that it is a development project governed by the 2008 law, and removes that entry only when the project is completed and its units registered to buyers, or when the project is cancelled. And Article 8 of the 2007 escrow law lets the Department record a sub-developer's purchase agreement against the master developer's plot, and allows an off-plan purchaser to ask for a similar update showing the purchaser's own agreement with the sub-developer.

The by-law's Article 22 also treats as negligence an off-plan sale made by a sub-developer without the master developer's written approval, along with a failure to register the project with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA).

The reservation form and the sale contract

A reservation form, signed with a first payment, may come before the contract. None of the official pages read for this guide describes that document: not its content, not the deposit that goes with it, not the conditions on which the deposit is returned. It is therefore left without a rule here. What the pages do describe is the document that follows.

That document is the sale and purchase contract. The Land Department's service page for registering an initial sale sets two conditions about it. It must be signed by the developer and by the purchaser. And where the purchaser is a minor, the guardian signs, with a copy of the guardian's passport or identity card attached.

The contract is not written from scratch for each buyer. Under Article 6 of the 2007 escrow law, a developer applying to open a project's escrow account files eight items with the Department, and one of them is a standard sale contract. The text the buyer is handed is thus, in principle, a form the Department already holds.

The by-law adds a right about the last version of that contract. Under its Article 20, a purchaser may ask a court to terminate if the developer refuses to deliver the final sale agreement without a reason the Department accepts. The by-law does not say when the final agreement must be delivered, and no page read lists the clauses it has to contain.

The service page also shows what the buyer supplies for the next step. The list changes with who is buying.

Registering the initial sale within 90 days

Article 3 of the 2008 law is the reason registration is a step of the purchase and not a formality after it. Every disposition of an off-plan unit must be entered in the Interim Property Register, and a sale that is not entered there is void. The Department's published answers repeat the idea in general terms: real estate transactions that are not registered in its registers are considered invalid.

The buyer does not file the entry. According to the Department's service page, the service exists so that a real estate developer can register units sold off-plan, or plots whose price has not been paid in full, in the provisional register. The page gives four steps:

1. The developer logs in to the Oqood portal and selects the provisional sale registration service.
2. It selects the property, fills in the details, attaches the documents and chooses a payment method.
3. It submits the application online.
4. The output is sent by email to the purchaser.

The page sets a deadline: the contract must be registered in the provisional register within 90 days of signing. It lists the processing time as a business day and the channel as the Department's website, through the developers' portal. Fees are settled from a Noqodi wallet or by deduction from the escrow account.

What the buyer receives is named on the page: a provisional registration e-certificate, sent by email to the purchaser. That certificate is the buyer's evidence that the sale stands on the register.

The page does not say what follows when the 90 days are missed. The by-law does contain a fine of AED 10,000 on a developer who applies late, in its Article 3, but that article refers to the time limit in Article 3 of the law, which as published concerns sales made before the law came into force. Whether the same fine is applied to the 90-day condition is not stated on the pages read.

There is a published route for a buyer whose contract is not being registered. The Department's answers say that if a developer refuses or delays registering a sale contract, the investor can apply to the Department's Real Estate Registration Assurance section with supporting documents.

The registration fee and who pays it

The service page lists the fee on two lines: seller, 2% of the sale value; purchaser, 2% of the sale value. In an initial sale the seller is the developer. It then lists a knowledge fee of AED 10, an innovation fee of AED 10, and a developer self-registration fee of AED 1,000 for a provisional sale on the Oqood portal. The page does not say who bears the two AED 10 fees or the AED 1,000.

The equal split is the starting point, not a fixed rule. Article 9 of the by-law says that unless agreed otherwise, the developer and the buyer each pay their share of the prescribed registration fees. A contract may therefore move the whole fee to one side.

A worked example shows the difference. Assume a unit sold off-plan for AED 1.5 million; the figure is illustrative. On the split shown on the service page, the purchaser's share is 2% of AED 1.5 million, which is AED 30,000, and the seller's share is the same. Added together by this guide, that is AED 60,000, or 4% of the sale value; the page itself gives the two lines and no total. If the contract places both halves on the purchaser, the purchaser pays the AED 60,000. If it places both on the developer, the purchaser's share falls to nothing. The two AED 10 fees add AED 20 to the transaction, whoever carries them.

Apart from the registration fee, the law limits what a developer may ask for. Article 7 of the 2008 law bars master developers and sub-developers from charging fees on sales, resales or other dispositions of units, completed or off-plan, except administrative costs approved by the Department. Article 8 of the by-law says a developer may not charge buyers any amount for a legal disposition other than the amounts the Department has approved. The amounts so approved were not found on the pages read.

Paying only into the project's escrow account

The 2007 law defines the escrow account as a project's bank account that holds the payments of off-plan purchasers or of the project's financiers. It is managed by an escrow agent, a financial or banking institution accredited by the Department. Under Article 9 the account is opened in the project's name and reserved exclusively for that project's construction, a developer with several projects keeps a separate account for each, and the developer's creditors cannot attach the money in it.

The Department's answers to frequently asked questions turn that into a rule about each payment: all buyer payments must go into the escrow account, including the amounts paid by a buyer's mortgage lender, and so must any financing raised for the development. The by-law closes the route through an intermediary. Under its Article 12 a broker must deposit the sale price into the project's escrow account, may not place it in the broker's own account, and may not deduct commission first; any agreement to the contrary is void.

The answers also describe what happens to the money once it is in. Funds are used to pay contractors, consultants and marketing, and only 5% of total sales may be spent on marketing the project. A payment leaves the account after the project manager reports that a milestone is complete and the engineer of the account trustee has verified the work on site. The 2007 law itself contains no payout procedure; that description comes from the Department's answers.

What the buyer holds at this step is a right to look. Article 12 of the 2007 law lets depositors, or their representatives, view their own accounting records and ask for copies.

Instalments tied to construction

A payment plan is the schedule of instalments written into the contract. The official pages say little about its shape and more about what it rests on. The Department's answers state that payment schedules are based on completion rates.

They then give the buyer a means of control. Before paying, an investor may ask for the project's current completion percentage in the form of a letter from a project consultant approved by the Department. Without that confirmation, the answers say, the investor is not obliged to pay unless the agreed completion stage has been reached. Read plainly, an instalment that the contract ties to a stage of construction follows the building, and the buyer may ask for proof of the stage.

The by-law treats the link as something a developer can be held to. Under Article 20, a purchaser may ask a court to terminate the contract where the developer declines to link payments to the construction milestones proposed by RERA. No published schedule of those milestones was found for this guide, so the percentages a given plan uses are those of its contract.

A worked example, with invented terms, shows how the pieces fit. Assume a contract that makes an instalment of 10% of the price fall due when the project reaches 40% completion, and a developer's request for that instalment while the Department's tracking service shows 32%. On the Department's answers, the buyer may ask for the consultant's letter stating the percentage, and is not obliged to pay that instalment before the agreed stage is reached. How a dispute over the figure would be settled depends on the contract and, in the end, on the Department's conciliation or a court.

There is a heavier tool for measuring progress. The Department's answers describe a technical report service whose purpose is to identify the percentage of completion of a project. One answer says an investor may obtain a completion report from the technical auditor against an audit fee of AED 15,000 per unit or villa. Another says applicants who are not developers pay AED 15,070 in advance to request the technical report. The two figures are given as the page gives them; the page does not explain the AED 70 difference. A report expires three months after the date of the last technical report. The by-law's Article 17 gives the report its standing: the completion percentage is confirmed by a technical report from a consultant approved by RERA, based on an inspection of the site.

If construction slows or the project is cancelled

The same answers describe what the regulator does while a buyer is paying. RERA checks construction progress periodically. The developer of a stalled project is given a period to correct its position, and if it does not, cancellation procedures begin.

A buyer's own options are narrow. The Department cannot terminate a contract between a developer and an investor at the investor's request, its answers say: the investor must go to the real estate court, and the Department's role is limited to amicable reconciliation. The by-law frames that role in its Article 14, under which the Department may mediate and a written settlement binds both sides once the Department approves it. The grounds on which a purchaser may ask a court to terminate are those of Article 20: refusal to deliver the final sale agreement, refusal to link payments to construction milestones, a material departure from the agreed specifications, a unit proven unfit for use after handover because of material construction defects, and other grounds under the general rules of law.

Where a project is cancelled, the money has a timetable. Under Article 25 of the by-law, RERA asks for the amounts to be refunded within 14 days of the cancellation. Under Article 26, if the escrow account does not hold enough, the developer must refund the shortfall within 60 days of the cancellation decision, unless the period is extended. The Department's answers give the same 60 days and add that a developer's failure to comply sends the matter to court. Where a project has not been cancelled, the answers say an investor who wants payments back must go to court.

Reselling before completion

A unit that is on the interim register is an asset its buyer can deal with. Article 6 of the 2008 law says off-plan units entered in the Interim Register may be sold, mortgaged or otherwise legally disposed of. Because Article 3 applies to every disposition, a resale has to be entered in the register too, or it is void.

The Department's answers add the condition that matters in practice. Asked whether a unit can be assigned before it is transferred to the land registry, the Department replies that resale is possible after obtaining a no-objection certificate from the developer. The same document is required when an off-plan unit is sold at auction: the Department must then be given the developer's no-objection to the sale.

Three things are not on the pages read. They give no fee for the certificate, beyond the limit in Article 7 of the law and Article 8 of the by-law that only amounts approved by the Department may be charged. They do not say whether a developer may make the certificate depend on a share of the price having been paid. And the service page for the initial sale does not mention resale at all, so the Department's fee and procedure for entering a resale in the interim register are not stated here. For comparison only, the Department's service page for the sale of a completed property asks for a no-objection e-certificate from the developer in freehold areas, obtained through the Dubai REST application, and charges 2% of the sale value to the seller and 2% to the buyer. That page concerns completed property and does not mention the interim register.

From the interim register to the title deed

The completion branch is the subject of a separate guide and is only named here. Under Article 8 of the 2008 law, a developer that has received the completion certificate must enter the finished project in the Property Register and register sold units in the names of buyers who have met their contractual obligations. The Department's answers describe the result: fully paid units move from the initial register to the real estate registry, and the title deed or usufruct certificate is issued.

The table gathers what the buyer holds at each stage of the path.

What the official pages leave open

Several points a buyer meets in practice have no published answer on the pages read for this guide.

The reservation form is the first. No rule was found on what it must say, how large the deposit may be, or when it is returned.

The content of the sale contract is the second. The law requires a standard contract to be filed and the by-law gives a right to the final agreement, yet no page lists the terms that contract must carry or publishes the construction milestones RERA proposes.

The third is cost at the edges of the path: who bears the AED 1,000 self-registration fee and the two AED 10 fees, what the Department has approved as a developer's administrative charge, and what the Department charges to enter a resale before completion.

The fourth is the 90-day condition, for which the service page states no consequence.

One reserve applies to the legal texts. They were read in the English translations on the Dubai Legislation Portal, which state that the Arabic text prevails, and the page for Law No. (13) of 2008 carries no note of the amendments made to it since.

A signed contract starts an off-plan purchase in Dubai. The emailed certificate from the provisional register is what shows it exists.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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