Immigration and divorce issues are increasing demand for property valuation in the UAE, a real estate consultancy said.
Landmark Valuations, a division of Landmark Properties, has seen a significant increase of 50 per cent in valuation requests for immigration purposes, particularly to Canada, over the past six months, the company said in a statement.
"The country that the individual is migrating to often requires the person to hold a certain net worth and state their net worth of assets in the application. In most cases, the largest asset individuals hold in their 'balance sheet' is property," said Saeed Hashmi, Head of Valuations at Landmark Properties.
He said: "During divorce proceedings the court usually requires the divorcee's assets to be valued to determine the appropriate split. We have also seen a number of valuation requests for estate purposes this year, which in addition to divorce procedures are quite personal and can lead to life changing decisions."
Besides, many companies have been carrying out valuations for year-end auditing and corporate strategy purposes during their financial year as property prices have changed significantly throughout 2010.
"Traditionally, the majority of valuations undertaken are for bank lending purposes, however this trend has changed as bank lending volumes have been low and particularly selective during the past year" Hashmi said.
"In addition to bank lending purposes, many valuations are requested for auditing and accounting purposes as companies look to revalue their balance sheets, something that is extremely important in the current climate as values have changed drastically over the past two years.”