Notice to vacate in Dubai: the twelve-month rule

A landlord in Dubai cannot end a tenancy just because the contract has run out. Article 6 of Law No. 26 of 2007 renews an expired lease automatically, for the same term or for one year, whichever is shorter, where the tenant carries on occupying the property and the landlord raises no objection. Recovering possession means fitting the case into one of the grounds the statute allows. For the grounds that apply at expiry, it also means serving notice twelve months ahead through a Notary Public or by registered mail.

The law was rewritten a year after it was passed. Law No. 33 of 2008, published on 1 December 2008, replaced articles 2, 3, 4, 9, 13, 14, 15, 25, 26, 29 and 36 of the 2007 law, which takes in both of the eviction articles. Read the 2007 text on its own and the re-letting restriction comes out wrong, because the amendment lengthened it. Disputes do not go to the ordinary civil courts. They are heard by the Rental Disputes Centre, established by Decree No. 26 of 2013 and sitting under the Dubai Land Department.

Two routes, not one

Article 25 splits eviction in two. Paragraph (1) sets out when a landlord may demand eviction before the contract expires. Paragraph (2) sets out when a landlord may demand it upon expiry. The twelve-month notice belongs to paragraph (2) alone. Rent arrears are a paragraph (1) matter, dealt with on thirty days, and the twelve-month rule has nothing to say about them.

The paragraph (1) grounds, as replaced in 2008, include the following.

• Failure to pay the rent, or any part of it, within thirty days from the date the landlord's notice is served.
• Subletting without the landlord's written consent.
• Use of the property for an unlawful purpose, or one that offends public order and morals.
• Commercial premises left vacant for thirty consecutive days, or for ninety non-consecutive days in a year.
• Damage to the property caused deliberately or through the tenant's gross negligence.
• Failure to meet any other obligation under the law or the contract within thirty days of being required to.
• A structure at risk of collapse, on a report from Dubai Municipality, or a demolition required by the government for urban development.

The four grounds at expiry

Article 25(2) gives four, and no more. The owner wishes to demolish and reconstruct the property, or to add new structures that prevent the tenant occupying it. The property needs restoration or comprehensive maintenance that cannot be done while the tenant is in occupation, supported by a technical report attested by the municipality. The owner wishes to take the property back for personal use, or for use by a first-degree relative, and has no suitable alternative property. Or the owner wishes to sell.

Each of the four turns on the owner's intention or the condition of the building. None of them turns on the tenant's conduct. A tenant who has paid on time and kept to every term can still be required to leave under paragraph (2), which is the part of this law most often misread by people on both sides of the contract.

What the notice has to be

The closing words of Article 25(2) are short. The landlord must notify the tenant of the reasons for eviction at least twelve months before the date of eviction, and service must go through a Notary Public or by registered mail.

Two points follow. Twelve months is a floor, not a window, so a longer period does not invalidate the notice. And the statute names two methods of service and stops there. An email is not one of them. Nor is a letter handed over at the door.

This gets checked at registration. Among the documents the Rental Disputes Centre lists for registering a first instance rental lawsuit is a notarised notice with the process server's report, or the registered post receipt, where the claim is for eviction. Everything filed has to be in Arabic or legally translated, and uploaded through the Centre's own site rather than handed in on paper.

What the landlord cannot do afterwards

Where possession is recovered for the owner's own use or a first-degree relative's, Article 26 as amended bars the landlord from letting the property to a third party for at least two years in the case of residential property, and three years where it is not residential. A tenant who finds the property re-let inside that period may ask the tribunal for appropriate compensation. The original 2007 wording set one calendar year for both. That text was replaced in 2008, so a source quoting one year is quoting a provision that no longer applies.

Where the ground was demolition and reconstruction, or renovation and restoration, Article 29 gives the tenant a right of first refusal to return once the work is finished. It has to be exercised within thirty days of the landlord's notification, with the rent determined under Article 13.

A sale does not end the tenancy

The owner's wish to sell is a ground for eviction at expiry. It is not a mechanism for ending a tenancy early, and buying an occupied property does not hand the buyer vacant possession. Article 28 provides that transferring ownership to a new owner does not affect the tenant's right to carry on occupying under the contract made with the previous owner, provided that contract has a fixed term. Article 27 does the same job for death. The lease does not expire when either party dies. It continues with the heirs, and a tenant's heirs who want to bring it to an end must give at least thirty days' notice, or wait for the contract to expire, whichever comes first.

Where the case goes

Decree No. 26 of 2013 gives the Rental Disputes Centre exclusive jurisdiction over rent disputes between landlords and tenants of property in the emirate, including in free zones, together with the counterclaims, interim applications and enforcement that follow. Three categories sit outside it: free zones that operate their own tribunals with jurisdiction over such disputes, finance lease contracts, and long-term leases falling under Law No. 7 of 2006. The Centre attempts amicable settlement first, through its Mediation and Conciliation Directorate, within fifteen days of the parties' first appearance, extendable. A settlement recorded there carries the force of a writ of execution.

Registration, and the other notice

Article 4 as amended requires lease contracts governed by the law, and any amendments to them, to be registered with RERA. In practice that is Ejari, and the Centre asks for the most recent copy when a claim is registered, alongside the claimant's Emirates ID or trade licence and a bank letter showing the IBAN.

Article 14 is the provision people confuse with the eviction notice. A party who wants to amend the terms of the lease, the rent included, has to notify the other at least ninety days before the contract expires, unless the parties agree otherwise. Ninety days to change the terms. Twelve months to take the property back. They are separate notices doing separate work, and one does not substitute for the other.

One honest gap is worth naming. The statute fixes a minimum period and a method of service, but says nothing about aligning the twelve months with the end of a contract term, and because Article 6 renews an expired lease automatically, a notice served mid-term will usually run across at least one renewal. Arguments here turn on facts rather than principle: when the notice went out, how it went out, and what it said. Keep the process server's report. The Centre asks for it at registration, and a notice that cannot be proved is, for the purpose of a filing, a notice that was never served.