Putting a Dubai property up for auction: organisers, files and payout

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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A property auction in Dubai has a side that the bidder does not see. Somebody has to bring the property to the sale, prove the right to sell it, agree a figure at which bidding opens, wait while it is advertised, and then collect the money. That somebody may be an owner who has chosen an auction over a private sale, or a creditor acting through a court. Between that seller and the bidders stands an organiser, which may be the Dubai Land Department's own portal or a private company.

This guide follows the seller's route and the organiser's work, as the organisers' own pages and terms set them out. It describes the position as read in October 2026. It covers who the organisers are and how each describes its tie to the Land Department and the courts, the file a seller assembles, the opening price, the listing period, the marketing, the bidding as the organiser runs it, the deductions from the price, the payout, and what happens to a property that does not sell.

Terms of use and requirements pages of eMart, the Dubai Land Department's auction portal, both marked as last updated on 16 May 2018 and read in October 2026.

Who the organisers are, in their own words

Two organisers publish terms that could be read for this guide, and each describes itself differently. Two further names appear only in press reports.

The first is the Land Department itself. Its portal, eMart, is described on its own pages, last updated on 16 May 2018, as "specially designed for real estate professionals to list their properties for auction in Dubai". The same pages say that every channel of the portal operates under laws and regulations enforced by the Department. Here the regulator, the register and the organiser are one body.

The second is the private auction company. Emirates Auction describes itself in its published terms and conditions, which carry no date and were read in October 2026, as "a mere intermediary in facilitating the service through its platform". The terms add that it acts as a platform and is not directly involved in the contracts between buyers and sellers. The terms never call the company the seller's agent. They define the seller broadly: an owner, a judgment creditor, their representatives, or a government or private entity.

The press record adds two names. Khaleej Times reported on 13 April 2026 that YallaValue, which the newspaper described as a Dubai-based property valuation platform, was preparing an auction service that the article said was licensed by the Land Department, with seller registration open for less than a week and no property yet listed; its status after that date was not checked, and it is not described further here. Gulf News reported on 29 July 2019 that the Land Department had signed a partnership agreement with a company named Online Auction, under which the company would manage online auctions and provide tools for promoting property, working under the Department's supervision and with its support. The article gave no fees and no procedure.

How each describes its tie to the Land Department and the courts

The Land Department's service pages describe the relationship from the public side. A company authorised to organise public or electronic auctions applies to the Department for a permit for each property it declares for sale, and the Department supervises. The permit page, updated on 7 October 2026, describes a free service processed within two business days on the Department's website. Its first required document is an application letter that comes from an official entity, from Dubai Courts or from Minors Affairs, where one of them is behind the sale, or else a personal application.

Emirates Auction's terms describe the same relationship from the company's side, and in different words. They do not mention the Land Department by name; registration of a property is left to "competent authorities for real estate registration", and the terms say the company is not liable if registration is refused. On the courts they are more direct. In their real estate section, the company states that it contracts with the court to stand in for an executive body, carrying out tasks normally handled by bailiffs and execution agents. The same section says the execution judge approves real estate bids.

An older document shows what such a mandate can look like. The Land Department announced on 21 September 2016 that the Rental Disputes Center, which the release called the Department's judicial arm, had signed a memorandum of understanding with Emirates Auction. That agreement concerned movable items left in a property under provisional attachment, not land or buildings. Its division of labour is still instructive: according to the release, the company arranges a public examination of the items, announces the sale date, and obtains the permits, while the sale runs under the execution judge's supervision with a court bailiff present. The record goes to the judge, who approves the sale or orders a re-bid, and the proceeds are deposited at the Center and deducted from the claim.

Dubai Courts' own account of how it instructs an organiser for a property sale could not be read for this guide.

Opening a seller's account on the Land Department's portal

The eMart terms of use set out who may sell and what each must upload. Registration is free for every user. What follows, here and in every later section that cites the portal, comes from pages marked as last updated on 16 May 2018.

• An owner uploads a copy of the passport and a copy of the title deed.
• A person representing an owner uploads the owner's passport, the representative's passport, the title deed and a power of attorney.
• A development company or an owner company acts through a representative, who uploads a passport, the trade licence, the title deed and an authorisation letter.
• A broker comes last in the chain: the real estate office registers first, and its brokers submit requests once their accounts are active.

The terms then add a step in person. After registering online, every seller visits the Land Department with the original passport, to have identity verified and to sign the delegation of sale. The portal's questions page appears to say the opposite: asked whether a user has to visit the Department to activate access, it answers no. Neither page explains the difference.

One condition comes before all of this. Under the terms, a title deed must have been issued before a property can be listed.

The file a seller assembles

The portal's requirements page, last updated in May 2018, lists what the Department asks of a seller, and the list is longer than the six documents of a company's permit application.

The core is title and identity: the original title deed, the original site plans of the Land Department and of the Municipality, and copies of the Emirates identity cards of every owner and of their representatives. Next comes consent. The owners sign a declaration of sale, or their legal representative signs it under a notarised power of attorney dated no more than two years earlier. Where the auction enforces a court decision, the page accepts the court verdict in place of the declaration. That is the creditor's way into the same file.

Three no-objection certificates may be needed, according to the page: one for the sale from the developer or the owners' association, one from the Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation if any seller is a minor, and one from the bank if the property is mortgaged.

The page then asks for something no register holds: a detailed written statement of the property's specifications, with an undertaking that it matches reality. It covers rooms, bathrooms, halls, kitchens, parking, annexes, the number of apartments and floors, annual income, the age of the building, the area and the service charges. The terms of use place the weight of that statement on the seller, who takes sole responsibility for the information submitted and indemnifies the portal's operators against liability arising from incorrect information.

Occupation is dealt with last. For private housing, the seller signs an undertaking to vacate and hand over the property free of occupants within one month of the sale date. For a rented property, the seller hands over the lease contracts and detailed rent statements showing the term, the annual rent, the amounts collected and outstanding, the cheques received and cashed, and the security deposit.

The valuation and the opening price

Every route asks for a recent official valuation. The company permit page asks for a property evaluation certificate valid for six months and made for the auction. The eMart requirements page of 2018 asks for a Land Department valuation certificate for sale at auction, also valid for six months, and adds a rule for a certificate obtained for another purpose: in that case "the property value will be reduced by not less than 10% of the certificate value".

A worked example, with an assumed figure. A seller holds a certificate obtained for another purpose at AED 2,500,000. Ten per cent of that is AED 250,000, so the value taken for the auction would be no more than AED 2,250,000.

What the pages call the opening figure differs by organiser. The eMart terms of 2018 speak of an asking price, and say it "should be within the range of current market price" and that it includes service charges until the current service agreement expires. Emirates Auction's terms speak of an auction start price. Neither document mentions a reserve, a confidential minimum below which the seller will not sell. The eMart terms do not say that a seller may refuse the highest bid; under their bidding rules the winner is awarded the property.

Emirates Auction's general terms contain a clause that points the other way for the company's sales as a whole: the sale of an item is subject to the approval of the seller or supplier, and may be cancelled or extended. For property sold on a court's order, the real estate section makes the execution judge the one who approves.

Approval, the listing period and the block on the property

Once the request is filed on eMart, the terms as last updated in May 2018 give the Department five working days: the proposed start date of the auction is the date of the request plus five working days for approval. The Department may reject a listing that does not meet its requirements and must give the reason, and the seller may list again. Listing itself is free.

The listing period runs for a maximum of 30 days from approval. It takes in a pre-opening period and a bidding period of five working days.

A consequence of listing is easy to miss. While a property is listed, the 2018 terms say, it is blocked from any transaction at the Land Department. The block lifts in three cases: when a closed deal is registered, when the listing period ends, or when the seller delists the property.

How the lots are marketed

The portal's marketing tools, as its 2018 pages describe them, are few. A listing carries a minimum of three photographs and a maximum of 15, covering different areas and facilities of the property, and prices are stated in UAE dirhams only. An approved lot is shown under "Upcoming Auctions" until its start date, which is the pre-opening part of the listing period. The about page states the aim: to attract the largest number of interested buyers during the marketing period, on the strength of what it calls validated property information.

Emirates Auction's terms say nothing about how property lots are advertised, and its questions page showed only question titles when it was read.

Bidding as the organiser runs it

The seller does not take part in the bidding, but the organiser's rules decide how the price is formed. Two sets of rules can be put side by side.

Some details sit outside the table. On eMart, under the 2018 terms, the deposit is paid online with the request to take part, through the Noqodi payment gateway, and bidders who do not win have it returned within five working days of the close. Emirates Auction's terms take the property deposit by bank transfer or manager's cheque, and say a deposit is activated within 24 hours when paid by transfer or card and within 36 hours when paid by cheque. Refunds are started by the bidder from a deposit dashboard and go back to the account or card the money came from; the terms give no time limit for them. The terms also describe an auto-bidder, through which a bidder sets a maximum, and they extend auction time around prayer times as well as for last-minute bids.

For a seller, the deposit base matters. On an assumed opening figure of AED 2,200,000, a bidder on eMart, under its 2018 terms, puts down AED 220,000, and a bidder under Emirates Auction's property terms AED 440,000.

What is taken from the price

On the Land Department's portal, according to its terms as last updated in May 2018, the seller's costs arise only on a sale, and they are deducted from the payout. The terms give the formula: the seller receives the final selling price, less 2 per cent for sale registration (the seller's half of a 4 per cent total), less an auction fee of AED 10,000, less a knowledge fee of AED 10. The requirements page states the alternative for a public, live auction: 1 per cent of the sale price, capped at AED 30,000, charged to the seller if the property sells. The Department's page for registering an auction sale, updated on 7 October 2026, lists the same two supervision amounts and the 2 per cent, and adds an innovation fee of AED 10 beside the knowledge fee.

A worked example, with an assumed price of AED 2,400,000 and one fee of each kind.

The last sentence of that caption is the gap in the seller's arithmetic. Emirates Auction's terms state no seller's commission. What they state is a charge on the buyer of property: 3 per cent of the sale value plus AED 15,000, described as including the ownership transfer fees and the company's commission. On the assumed price of AED 2,400,000 that is AED 72,000 plus AED 15,000, or AED 87,000. The terms do not explain how that sum relates to the fees the Land Department lists for seller and purchaser, and they do not say whether a consigning owner is charged anything. The general terms add that VAT at 5 per cent applies to the final price and to fees where relevant, and that applying it is among the seller's duties.

After the hammer: who pays whom, and when

On eMart, under the terms last updated in May 2018, the money passes through the Department. The winner has 20 working days from the award to pay the balance, by bank transfer through Noqodi, and the seller receives a cheque in the seller's name within six working days of the Department receiving that balance. In a worked example using only those two limits, a seller is paid at the latest 26 working days after the award.

Under Emirates Auction's property terms the calendar is shorter and, for a court-ordered sale, less final. The balance is due within 10 days. The terms give a window of 10 days in which the price may be raised by one-tenth; on a price of AED 2,400,000 that is AED 240,000, so the lowest offer that reopens the result is AED 2,640,000. The terms then refer to the auction being repeated within seven days.

A sale by a private organiser ends at the Land Department's counter all the same. The registration service is open to the seller, the purchaser and authorised companies, on condition that the property was sold through an authorised auction company. It asks for the documents of the permit file and one more, the auction award letter. The page gives a service time of 25 to 30 minutes and says the Department's fees are paid through the licensed auction company, by a fee cheque deposited into the Department's account. The outputs are the title deed, the map and the receipts.

When the winner does not pay, the sources diverge. The eMart terms of 2018 state no penalty for a buyer's or a seller's default. Emirates Auction's property terms forfeit the deposit and make the bidder bear the difference between the two prices, and its general terms add a fine of 30 per cent of the sale amount. Neither document says what share of a forfeited deposit, if any, reaches the seller.

Withdrawn lots, unsold lots and open questions

A seller's right to change course is narrow on the portal. Under the eMart terms, last updated in May 2018, a seller may delist a property from the e-auction only while no first participation request has been received. Once one bidder has paid a deposit and asked to take part, the listing runs its course.

If nobody asks to take part, the property is delisted automatically when the listing period expires, and the block at the Land Department lifts. The terms give an express right to list again after a rejection by the Department; they give no general rule on listing again after a period that ended without a bidder, and they set no charge for an unsold lot. The auction fee and the 2 per cent are deductions from a price, so under the terms as written they do not arise without a sale.

Emirates Auction's terms do not address unsold lots at all. They do reserve wide control over the catalogue: an item may be withdrawn without prior notice at the company's discretion or at the seller's request, an auction may be postponed for technical reasons, and property auctions may be extended for insufficient bidding, technical problems or court orders. A sale may be cancelled before or after the auction is completed.

A seller or a creditor reading the same pages would be left with these questions unanswered:

• the commission, if any, that a private organiser charges a consigning owner;
• whether a private owner selling through a company can set a confidential reserve, and who may refuse the highest bid;
• how Emirates Auction's charge of 3 per cent plus AED 15,000 on the buyer fits with the Land Department's 2 per cent on each side;
• how Dubai Courts instructs an organiser for a property sale, since the court's own pages could not be read;
• whether the eMart rules of 2018 still describe the portal's auctions in 2026;
• what a seller receives when a winning bidder defaults.

On the Land Department's portal a seller's costs are printed, on pages last updated in 2018, and fall due only on a sale. With a private organiser, the terms print the buyer's charge and leave the seller's unstated.

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.

About Kooky and Shaka →