Buying property in Dubai without living there

A residence visa is not a precondition for owning property in Dubai. The Dubai Land Department's service page for property sale registration lists, for individuals, the Emirates ID of the seller and the buyer, or "valid passport for non-resident foreigners". The passport is the substitute. Nothing in the published list asks a buyer for a UAE residence permit or a local address before a title deed is issued in their name.

What does constrain a non-resident is geography, and, where a company is involved, where that company is incorporated. Foreign nationals may take freehold only inside the areas Dubai has designated for the purpose. The Land Department will not register title in the name of a foreign company at all. Both limits are settled long before anyone discusses a price.

Where a non-resident may own

Law No. 7 of 2006 on Real Estate Registration in the Emirate of Dubai gives UAE and GCC nationals, and companies wholly owned by them, the right to own anywhere in the emirate. Everyone else is confined to the Designated Areas. Inside them a foreign national can take the full set of interests: freehold, musataha, usufruct, and leases running up to 99 years. Freehold there is absolute, unlimited in time, and extends to the land and the buildings on it. The areas come from Regulation No. 3 of 2006 and the instruments that later added to its list.

Companies are treated separately. The guide the Land Department publishes with Al Tamimi & Company records that it "does not allow foreign companies to own real estate directly". A foreign company has to form a subsidiary in an approved Dubai free zone, the Jebel Ali Free Zone and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre being the two named, and register the property in that subsidiary's name. Settle the structure with the department before signing.

The documents, and the clock

For a resale the list for individuals is short. Identification for both parties, and a no-objection e-certificate from the developer, which in freehold areas is issued through the Dubai REST app. The contract is the Land Department's standard Form F, to which the parties may attach their own terms so long as those do not conflict with the standard ones. Where a broker acts, the department's standard broker appointment form is signed too, and its guide advises against using brokers not registered with RERA.

Deadlines differ by product. An off-plan purchase must reach the provisional register within 90 days of the contract being signed, which the Land Department states on its initial sale registration page. For completed property the department's investor guide gives 60 days from signature, with a fine on top of the registration fees. That guide was published in 2017. Confirm the 60 days at the trustee office rather than relying on it from abroad.

Signing through an attorney

The Land Department expects the owner at the counter, in person or through a representative acting under "a duly notarized power of attorney". Most non-resident purchases take the second route, and the power of attorney is where they stall. A document signed in Dubai is notarised by the notary public and that is the end of it. One signed abroad has to travel.

The United Arab Emirates is not a contracting party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention. An apostille on its own therefore does not carry a document into a Dubai trustee office. Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia are parties. The UAE is not. Consular legalisation applies instead. The UAE Embassy in London states the rule for its own jurisdiction: a document must be "legalised first by its respective foreign office" before the embassy will attest it. For a document signed in the United Kingdom that means a solicitor or a notary public, then the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, then the embassy. Other UAE missions apply the equivalent chain.

Two further points decide whether the document works at the counter. The Land Department requires foreign-language documents to be attested and submitted with certified Arabic translations. And the power of attorney has to state what the attorney may do in terms specific enough for a registrar to act on. Allow weeks for the chain.

Signing without one

There is a remote alternative to the counter. The Land Department introduced a remote property registration system in May 2020, built so that owners could complete a sale "from anywhere in the world" without attending and without appointing an attorney. Seller and buyer deal with each other over an audio-visual link, identity is verified digitally, and the money moves through an escrow account, with the seller paid within three working days. The department reported 550 transactions completed this way at the time of the announcement, worth AED 600 million. Confirm with the trustee office whether it is offered on a given transaction.

What the transfer costs

The headline charge is 4 per cent of the sale value. The Land Department's service page splits it into 2 per cent from the seller and 2 per cent from the buyer, and its investor guide says the same, "unless agreed otherwise". The exception has swallowed the rule. In the Dubai resale market the buyer commonly pays the whole 4 per cent, so treat the split as a term to be agreed rather than a default.

The VAT in that table is the VAT a residential buyer actually pays, because it sits on the trustee's fee and not on the property. The Federal Tax Authority's position on the property itself is that supplies of residential properties are generally exempt, with the first supply within three years of completion zero-rated instead. Commercial property is taxable at 5 per cent. The Land Department's own charges can be settled by certified bank cheque, credit card, cash, or its Noqodi wallet.

Borrowing, and the bank

Only banks and financial institutions licensed by the Central Bank of the UAE may provide mortgage finance in Dubai. Whether any of them will lend to a non-resident, at what loan-to-value and against what proof of income, is each bank's own policy rather than a published rule. Get terms in writing before committing to a purchase timetable.

What is fixed is the registration. A mortgage must be registered at the Land Department to be valid. Registration costs 0.25 per cent of the mortgage value, plus AED 250 per title deed, plus a service partner fee of AED 4,000 and VAT. Over a property still on the provisional register it costs AED 5,000 and VAT.

The residence that can follow

Ownership can produce a residence permit. The permit is issued by the immigration authorities rather than by the Land Department, and the published thresholds do not read consistently across the pages that carry them.

The Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security issues an entry permit to a real estate investor on a letter confirming ownership of property worth at least AED 2,000,000, and describes it as the route to a golden residence of ten years. Dubai's residency directorate sets the same figure, accepts mortgaged property, and requires a lien on the property so that ownership continues for as long as the residence does. Where the property is co-owned, the applicant's own share must reach AED 2 million.

The Land Department's golden visa service page agrees on the money and on the term: a purchase value of AED 2 million or more at the time of purchase, and a ten-year renewable permit. It publishes fees totalling AED 9,884.75, of which AED 4,020 is the department's own charge, and a processing time of seven to ten working days. The frequently asked questions page on the same website still describes a three-year residence at AED 750,000 and a five-year one above AED 2 million. Those two pages contradict each other. The service page is the one the counter works from.

A shorter permit runs alongside it. The Taskeen investor residence lasts two years, and the Land Department states that an individual owner may apply "regardless of the property value", while a co-owner must hold a share worth at least AED 400,000. The published fee is AED 10,212.50. For its own property owner permit, Dubai's residency directorate requires a monthly income of no less than AED 10,000 and a property that is fully constructed and habitable. Land with nothing built on it does not qualify.

One point of sequencing is worth settling early. The Land Department's golden visa document list asks for an e-certificate of title or a title deed. It says nothing about units still on the map. Anyone relying on an off-plan purchase to produce a residence permit should have that confirmed in writing before the first instalment leaves their account.