Dubai warns visa applicants with forged tenancy contracts

Dubai Prosecution and Dubai Residency and Foreign Affairs (DNRD) have warned the public against seeking illegal services of people for arranging house lease certificates required for applying for visas for family and close relatives.

Unaware of the seriousness of the offence, some people seek forged house lease certificates that they enclose with visa applications for their relatives, said Brig Khalaf Al Ghaith, Assistant Director General at DNRD.

Some people claimed to be unaware that the photocopy of the house lease certificate they had submitted was forged.

In a recent case, a visa applicant submitted a forged lease certificate to a visa counter employee at DNRD. After discovering that the certificate was forged by checking it in the ‘Ijari’ system, the applicant was confronted. The applicant denied knowing that the certificate was forged. He claimed that the office where he had got the visa application typed had offered to arrange a lease certificate that can be accepted by the DNRD.

“The applicant should check all documents in hand before applying at the DNRD counter. Being ignorant or claiming unawareness does not exclude an applicant from legal responsibility. They should take the matter seriously. Forging or using a forged document is a crime and in a number of cases the court has awarded prison sentences of three to six months,” warned Brig Al Ghaith.

This case was investigated and the typing office involved was also referred to the Prosecution. In many cases, investigations proved that the visa applicant had paid amounts ranging from Dh3,000 to Dh4,000 to typing offices or individuals to arrange house lease certificates for them.

“Paying such large amounts indicates that they were aware that the service they were getting was illegal.  In one case, a visa applicant had forged a lease certificate that was in the name of his brother and made it in his name for applying to sponsor his mother,” said Dubai Advocate General Ali Humaid bin Khatem.

After about a week or two, the brother (the real holder of the lease certificate) used the genuine document to sponsor his wife.

“The two brothers had approached the same counter employee by coincidence. The alert employee remembered the family name. Checking the document in the system, he found out that it was forged. Investigating the case, we found out that the name in the certificate that had been submitted first was forged and that in the second application it was genuine,” said bin Khatem.

The first applicant thought that changing the first name in the document was not a big deal while in fact it was forgery, bin Khatem said.

He noted that the number of such cases coming to light had increased following the linking of DNRD and RERA’s ‘Ijari’ system in the middle of last year (2013).

“Now, DNRD employees can check the lease certificate and can know the real name of its genuine holder. So changing some information in the certificate’s photocopy can be discovered,” he stressed.

This is true not only in Dubai but also in other emirates. Sharjah has a registration system of house leases similar to RERA’s.

A number of such cases have been brought to light by Sharjah’s lease registration authority. Some employees of typing centres in other emirates involved in arranging forged leases certificates to visa applicants were arrested, he said.

Dubai Prosecution investigated 19 such cases in 2013 and 52 in 2014, totalling 71 cases since the middle of 2013.

Since the middle of 2013, a total of 105 cases of lease certificate forgery have been reported by DNRD to the police. Some of these cases are still under investigation by the police.

Brig Al Ghaith said authorities want the visa applicant to submit a lease certificate to ensure that the prospective visitor or resident has sufficient accommodation. Prospective sponsors of relatives should be capable of providing sufficient accommodation.

“In many cases, we found out that applicants who were involved in forged lease certificate cases were living in sharing accommodation. We do not want a prospective visitor, especially a woman, to stay in an inappropriate accommodation. We insist that families should have privacy in their lives. Families cannot live with bachelors,” he said.

Also, from a security perspective, authorities should be given accurate information about the accommodation of prospective visitors or residents, added Brig. Al Ghaith.
 

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