Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) is likely to make it mandatory for landlords to provide a service charge disclosure statement, Emirates 24|7 can reveal.

The move is aimed at safeguarding renters who have no way to know if their landlord is a service charge defaulter.

Zubin Firozi, Head of Property Management, Head Office, Better Homes, said: “We have been told that Rera will be implementing a disclosure statement procedure which would make it mandatory, regardless of the lease agreement, that the Landlord discloses his service fee payment status to a tenant or buyer of a property.

“Such a statement would be provided directly by the owners association manager. This will really help the situation once it is implemented.”

Dean Cheesley, Senior Legal Consultant, DLA Piper, confirmed they were aware that Rera was considering introducing such a requirement, but full details are unknown at this stage.

“The introduction of a disclosure obligation on landlords is likely to benefit residential tenants in terms of making them aware of the current position at the time of entering into a lease, which is an improvement on the current situation.”

In theory, this will allow tenants to make a more informed decision as to whether they should enter into a lease with that landlord or renew for a further term.

With respect to commercial/office lettings, Cheesley said that such an obligation to disclose may benefit tenants in areas such as Business Bay, where numerous buildings have been sold off on a strata basis and non-payment could affect the provision of building services to a tenant.

Rera did not answers questions sent by this website.

Service charge has been contentious issue for years in Dubai. Of late, a number of master developers have taken stringent measures such as barring tenants/owners from accessing facilities (gym and swimming pools) to even ceasing garbage collection services.

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