Dubai landlords want tenants to pay annual rent in single cheque

Dubai landlords are no longer offering renters the facility to pay the annual rent in 12 cheques.

Instead, landlords are demanding full-year rents be paid in one, or a maximum of two cheques.

“Real estate agents that I have contacted all have asked me to pay the annual rent in one cheque,” Manish Rathi, an Indian, who has been looking for a studio apartment in Dubai Marina, told Emirates 24|7.

“There is no room to negotiate, but only plead. The maximum that they then offer is a two-cheque payment facility.”

Rathi has even looked at Discovery Gardens, a community much more affordable than Marina.

“It’s the same everywhere.

“Agents say landlords are asking for single cheque payment. If you ask for a four cheque payment, they simple are not interested in showing you the property.”

Rathi was told to pay Dh55,000 in a single cheque for a 400 square feet studio apartment in Dubai Marina, while for a 650 square feet studio in Discovery Gardens he was asked to pay Dh42,000 in one cheque.

Faisal Baig, Director, PropSquare Real Estate, says landlords of properties that are in high demand tend to ask for payment in a single cheque.

“Owners of properties in the Springs, Meadows, and Jumeirah Islands do ask for single-cheque payments.

“We know of corporates that pay rents in yearly cheques as they are against issuing post-dated cheques.”

Although landlords were ready to lease units on a four- cheque payment basis until last year, they have become more demanding this year.

Last year, a survey by propertyfinder.ae, a Dubai-based property portal, showed landlords ready to agree to a four-cheque payment facility.

Only one per cent of the 3,000 brokers surveyed said one cheque was the norm.

Prime residential rents in Dubai rose by 15 per cent in the year to June 2013 fuelled by an increasing expatriate population and a rising number of corporate tenants.

Knight Frank, a UK-based consultancy, has said rent increases would have been steep, but the government’s restrictions on landlords raising rents of their existing tenants has controlled the increase and possibly reduced the movement between properties.

In July, Knight Frank’s Prime Global Rental Index put Dubai on top of the list of best performing rental markets in the world.

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