Tenants urged to ask for title deed and registration

Tenants should always ask the rental company through which they are going to lease the property to provide them the title deed and get the owner to register the contract with Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera), the agency's spokesperson told Emirates Business.

The advice was in response to the problem 38 families found themselves in after paying their rent in cash/single cheque to brokerage Corporate Business Solutions (CBS), which is in dispute with the owner of the building, Meraas Real Estate.

Meraas has filed a case against CBS and the tenants too plan to file a case against CBS to recover their money.

The tenants of building 219 at Discovery Gardens have been told they will be evicted within weeks if they do not pay the rent directly to the owner of the block.

"Tenants mostly use rental companies to rent units and they should ensure that the company is licenced and handles rental brokerage.

"Before signing the cheque, a tenant should ask for title deed and must ask the owner to register the contract with the agency," the spokesperson said.

In cases where a real estate management company is managing the building prospective tenants should look at the agreement and the contracts and must write cheques in the favour of the management company.

"So if any problem occurs, we can recover it from the security deposit," he said.

The case was heard before the rent committee on October 18. Tenants must decide whether to leave or seek a settlement with Meraas.

One tenant who attended the rent committee meeting said Meraas' lawyer told him to pay Dh50,000 for the remaining 10 months of his lease if he wanted to stay.

A tenant said: "We don't know how to verify each contract. I don't know how to find out whether the building belongs to a certain company or not. If I have a Rera stamp and the court does not recognise that then I don't know how can I have another contract."

Rent Committee General Secretary Mohammad Ahmad Al Shaikh declined to comment on the case.

Article 17 of Bylaw 85 of 2006, which covers the regulation of the real estate brokers' register, says: "A broker must inform his client of all details of negotiations, stages of mediation he is conducting and any information that is considered necessary to enable him to take the decision whether to enter into an agreement with the other contracting party. A broker must also inform the other contracting party of all substantial issues that are related to the subject of agreement and which are necessary in order to avoid any doubt in the agreement."

According to Article 22: "A broker shall be responsible for any losses or damages inflicted on any of the contracting parties as a result of his acts through deception, fraud or the non-observance of the principles to be followed as per the provisions of this bylaw or in accordance with the requirements of the code of ethics."

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