Big villa scam: Lawyer forged lease

An Emirati lawyer is accused of forging a lease certificate of the property.

The villa was mortgaged to a bank and the scam came to light after the bank sold it in a public auction, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.

The former owner MA took a loan of Dh2.6m from a local bank to buy the villa.

The bank announced the villa for public auction on November 2, 2013, as MA failed to pay the loan installments.

The tenant, occupying the villa at the time, AS, 55, lawyer, approached the bank several times asking them not to sell the property, the Jordanian manager of the bank’s Legal Affairs Department testified.

However, the bank proceeded with the auction and sold the villa to Emirati businessman AB, 54, for Dh4.6m.

As the lease, signed between the former owner of the villa and the tenant of the property expired on May 12, 2014, the new owner was paid Dh83,330 as rent for the remaining duration of the contract.

“I received that value amount for the remaining period of the contract and then informed the tenant to vacate the property,” the new owner testified.

The owner issued a number of warning to the tenant to vacate the property.

The tenant then surprised the new owner of the villa with a lease he had signed with the former owner showing the date of expiry as December 31, 2019.

Later, the tenant presented a lease registration certificate singed between him and the former owner of the villa. The validity of the lease was until 2019.

Employees in the lease registration section of the Land Department denied any knowledge about the certificate.

The certificate, however, carried the name of one of the employees.

This employee proved that he was in another branch on the same day that the transaction was processed.

He assured that he had never given his electronic ID and passwords to any of his colleague.

The new villa owner’s complaint remained unsolved, so he proceeded and lodged a complaint with the police for forgery of the lease and the lease registration certificate.

The Prosecution noted that the lease and its registration certificate were forged.

It also supplied the court with relevant letters issued by the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) in this regard, including a lease signed between the former owner of the villa that expires in May 2014 and another one signed in January 2014, after the property was sold.

The court will reconvene on June 5.

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