Oqood: how an off-plan Dubai purchase is registered

Oqood is the Dubai Land Department's portal for entering off-plan sales in the Interim Property Register. The register itself came from Law No. (13) of 2008, issued in Dubai on 14 August 2008. Article (2) defines it as the documents the Department keeps, in writing or in an electronic record, in which sale contracts, off-plan sales and other off-plan dispositions are registered before they reach the Property Register proper. Most buyers meet it as a fee and an emailed certificate. The legal weight sits elsewhere.

Article (3) is the sentence that matters. Any disposition of a real property unit sold off plan must be entered in the Interim Property Register, and any sale or other legal disposition transferring or restricting ownership or ancillary rights "will be void unless entered in that Register". Not voidable. Void. That sits on top of Law No. (7) of 2006, issued on 13 March 2006, whose Article (9) says transactions creating, transferring, amending or extinguishing real property rights are not valid unless recorded in the Property Register, and whose Article (7) gives that register absolute evidentiary value against all parties unless fraud or forgery is proved.

Why an interim register exists

A title deed describes a unit that has been built. An off-plan buyer is paying for one that has not. Article (6) of Law No. (7) of 2006 makes the Land Department the only body authorised to register real property rights and long-term leasehold contracts, so until 2008 there was no lawful place to record an off-plan interest. The interim register holds the buyer's position for the years between signature and handover. Because the entry is made against the unit, a second disposition of that same unit has to be presented to the same register.

What must be true before a unit can be sold off plan

Article (4) of Law No. (13) of 2008 bars a master developer or sub-developer from starting a project or disposing of units by off-plan sale before taking possession of the land and obtaining the required approvals from the competent entities. The Department must then designate the entry as "under development". Article (10) makes null and void any off-plan sale contract signed in a project the competent entities have not approved.

Escrow sits alongside this. Law No. (8) of 2007, issued on 6 May 2007, requires a developer who wants to sell units off plan to apply to the Department to open an escrow account under Article (6), and Article (7) puts payments from off-plan purchasers and from project financers into that account with the escrow agent. Article (14) makes the escrow agent retain 5% of the total value of each escrow account once the developer obtains the completion certificate, released one year from the registration of units in the names of purchasers. Article (4) of the same law keeps the Register of Real Estate Developers, and a developer must be entered in it.

Registering the project is itself a Land Department service, separate from registering any sale in it. As of September 2026 the published project registration fee is AED 150,000, with AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees on top. That service is where the escrow account is opened and the project approval e-certificate is issued.

Who files the registration, and when

The developer files, not the buyer. The service is called "Request to register the initial sale" and it runs through Oqood, the Real Estate Developers Portal. The developer selects the unit, enters the details, attaches the documents and chooses a payment method. The Department gives the service time as one business day, and the output goes to the purchaser by email.

On timing, the Department's own service page says the sale and purchase contract is to be registered in the provisional register within 90 days of the date the contract is signed. A great deal of market guidance instead says 60 days. That 60-day figure does appear in Law No. (13) of 2008, at Article (3)(2), but it was a transitional duty: developers who had already disposed of units before the law commenced had 60 days from commencement to bring those dispositions onto the register. It was never a standing deadline for new sales.

The documents the Department lists for the initial sale registration are short.

• A copy of the sale and purchase contract, signed by developer and purchaser
• A valid Emirates ID, plus a valid passport for non-residents
• For a company, a valid trade licence and a copy of the shareholder certificate
• For a foreign or GCC company, a Memorandum of Association translated into Arabic and ratified by the Ministry
• For a foreign company, a no objection letter from the free zone, valid for one year
• A power of attorney where one is being used, and for a minor, the guardian's signature and identity documents

The fee

The 4% is item 1 of the schedule to Executive Council Resolution No. (30) of 2013, which came into force on publication on 18 September 2013 and covers registration of completed, under-construction and off-plan property alike. Article (3)(1) of that resolution shares the sale fee equally between seller and purchaser "unless agreed otherwise". Those three words do most of the work in practice. On a first sale from a developer the contract commonly puts the whole 4% on the buyer, and the resolution permits exactly that.

Developer charges are governed separately and more loosely. Article (7) of Law No. (13) of 2008 forbids a master developer or sub-developer from charging any fee on the sale, resale or other disposition of a unit, except administrative costs approved by the Department. Those approved costs are not set out in the Executive Council schedule, so the figure differs between developers. Ask for it in writing before signature rather than at handover.

What the buyer holds

The output is a provisional registration e-certificate. It records the purchaser against the unit in the interim register. It is not a title deed, and the title deed is issued through a different service with its own fee. What the interim entry does give the buyer is the power to deal with the unit. Article (6) of Law No. (13) of 2008 allows units sold off plan and entered in the interim register to be disposed of by sale, mortgage or any other legal disposition. That is the legal footing for an off-plan resale and for a mortgage taken before completion.

From interim entry to title deed

Article (8) requires developers to enter completed projects in the Property Register once the competent entities issue the completion certificate, and to enter sold units in the names of purchasers who have fulfilled their contractual obligations. The same article lets the Department register such a unit in the purchaser's name either at the purchaser's request or on its own initiative, provided the purchaser has performed. Two conditions therefore have to hold: the project is certified complete, and the buyer has paid what the contract required.

The Department's service for that step quotes a title deed fee of AED 250 for an apartment, villa or land, a map fee of AED 250 for a unit or villa, and AED 10 knowledge and AED 10 innovation fees, with a service time of six business days. Land plot maps are quoted separately at AED 225 where unified with Dubai Municipality and AED 100 for land outside its jurisdiction. Reissuing a title deed later is a five-minute service at AED 250 with a AED 120 map fee.

If the buyer stops paying

Article (11) has been rewritten twice. Law No. (9) of 2009 replaced it on 12 April 2009, and Law No. (19) of 2020 replaced it again on 24 November 2020. The 2020 text is the one that governs, and by its own terms it applies to off-plan sale agreements concluded before as well as after it came into force.

The sequence is prescribed. The developer notifies the Department of the non-performance on the form the Department prescribes. The Department verifies the breach, serves a dated written notice of 30 days on the purchaser in person, by registered post with acknowledgement, by email or by another means it prescribes, and where possible mediates a settlement, which is then executed as an addendum to the agreement. If the notice period expires with nothing resolved, the Department issues an official document confirming that the developer followed the procedure and stating the project's percentage of completion, calculated under RERA's standards. Only on receiving that document may the developer act, and it may then do so without recourse to courts or arbitration.

Where the developer terminates and retains, anything above the retained percentage must be refunded within one year of termination or within 60 days of resale of the unit to another purchaser, whichever occurs earlier. Paragraph (f) of the article treats these rules as part of public order, so failure to comply nullifies the legal act. Paragraph (g) preserves the purchaser's own recourse to courts or arbitration.

One caveat sits on every English text cited here. The Land Department's legislation portal carries a standing footnote on its translations: for interpretation and application, reference must be made to the original Arabic, and the Arabic prevails in case of conflict. Service page fees move without announcement. Read the fee on the service page for the day the contract is being registered, and get the developer's approved administrative charges in writing first.