Q: In April 2017, AAK entered into a Pledge Agreement (the “PA”) with a Bond Holding Company (BHC) and a Developer (DEV). As per the PA, AAK deposited an amount in the form of Bonds with BHC, pledged to DEV, to act as a deposit for a property. AAK received a notice in Dec. 2017 and Aug. 9, 2018, from DEV stating that his signature on the Sale & Purchase Agreement (“SPA”) is pending. In addition, the concerned notice falsely stated that the Property is registered with DLD in the name of AAK. Despite several written requests for a copy of the DLD registration, DEV has not provided the same with a DLD registration dated on or before the initial date of the notice. On January 17, 2018, AAK then discovered that the amount had been redeemed from his holdings. The PA states it is being entered into based on the Reservation Form and the SPA which had been entered into by DEV as the Seller and AAK as the Purchaser; however AAK did not enter into any SPA. Has the PA contract been breached?

Q: I bought two off-plan apartments from a developer. Later I found that the covered area given in the  "Sale and Purchase Agreement" (SPA) is 20% more than the area calculated from design drawings provided by the developer. The units are ready for handover now and the final area is as per drawings i.e. less than that given in the SPA. The developer is adjusting the price for anything below 95% of the SPA area as the SPA allows 5% downward variation. As per my understanding, the developer already knew that the area is less and they exaggerated the area in the SPA. They also made a false statement of the area in the SPA. This should be a type of fraud or cheating. I have been writing this to the developer for the last two years but without any response. I want the units to be cancelled with a refund of the full amount and necessary compensation. Please advise the way forward.

Q: A contracting company in the UAE sent us an email with a DDA Permit to build a room in our house. Then subsequently they got approval from DDA (Dubai Development Authority). We have the original email from the Authority that the documents were issued with a permit, dated 04.07.21. But the contract changed the DDA document date to 04.08.21. We seek legal advice if this can be termed as a crime in the UAE for manipulating a document and if any lawyer can confirm to us if this is a genuine case that can be filed in Dubai Courts and which law applies to forging a document by email. The reason why the contractor forged the document is that they took the payment from us and wanted to delay the project and kept on telling us that DDA has not given any approval. Only after contacting DDA directly, we got the original document which shows a different date.

There are always conditions where people may fail to provide sufficient documents of a certain business or project they are willing to engage in, so they tend to commit an act of forgery with their documents to meet the requirements. But this act is a crime and it has consequences in law which we will try to cover in this article.

This Law establishes interim property register in which sale contracts, off-plan sales, and other off-plan legal dispositions of real property are registered prior to inclusion in the property register maintained by Dubai Land Department.

The provisions of this Law supersede articles (2) and (11) of Law No. (13) of 2008 Regulating the Interim Property Register in the Emirate of Dubai.

This Resolution approves the Implementing Bylaw of Law No. (13) of 2008 Regulating the Interim Property Register in the Emirate of Dubai.

This Resolution sets the fees for registration of real property dispositions in the real property register, including those related to completed, under-construction, or offplan real property, as well as the fees for services provided by Dubai Land Department.