Real Estate, Construction and Hotels & Leisure Focus
Mohammed Kawasmi Partner, Real Estate
Madeleine Herkes Associate, Real Estate
The real estate market in Dubai has matured and very sophisticated stakeholders have entered the Dubai real estate market, investing billions of dirhams in buying off plan and completed properties.
The real estate market requires experienced and qualified professionals to help these investors to make informed decisions in line with their commercial objectives, and legal services by specialised real estate lawyers are one of the most important required services in the market.
Al Tamimi & Company is the first law firm to sign an agreement with the Dubai Land Department (“DLD”) in 2019 in relation to the Real Estate Lawyer Initiative which aims to grant real estate lawyers a greater role and authority to help real estate investors. This initiative will lead to streamlining of processes and procedures to facilitate foreign investment into the Dubai real estate market. The initial phase of this initiative grants real estate lawyers specific authorities and we expect more authorities to be granted in the near future.
Under the Real Estate Lawyer Initiative, the DLD granted Real Estate Lawyers the following authorities:
Al Tamimi & Company services include thorough investigation of property title at the DLD. We can confirm information which is particularly of use to prospective buyers of Dubai real estate including:
confirmation of the owner of the property;
verification that the title deed investigated is valid and current; and
confirmation of any charges, encumbrances or other restrictions on the property title.
Among the services we offer is preparing and issuing what is known as a Corporate Structure Certificate (“CSC”) to facilitate the transfer of real property located in Dubai.
We can certify corporate structures for companies wishing to transfer real estate in Dubai whether in connection with intra-group restructurings or to and from third parties. We can include details of any relevant historic share transfers to be registered with the DLD in the Certificate.
The DLD requires that property-owning corporates registered in non-UAE jurisdictions submit fully legalised company documents for any property transfer or to update DLD records of shareholders and/or ultimate beneficial owners. Fully legalised means that such documents are notarised or apostilled, attested at the UAE Embassy at the country of issue and finally attested at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the UAE. Currently any foreign company documents to be submitted to the DLD must also be legally translated to Arabic.
For most company documents, we can verify the original document by issuing a CSC addressed to the DLD on our client’s behalf, potentially saving substantial time and costs which would be spent on obtaining attestations and legal translations in the preparation stage of the real estate transaction.
Typical transactions for which Al Tamimi & Company produces CSCs to certify to the DLD:
the corporate structure of the seller / transferor entity;
the corporate structure of the buyer / transferee entity; and
historic share transfers in the transferor entity which trigger payment of DLD property transfer fees.
Once the CSC is issued, the company representatives can attend any Dubai real estate trustee registration office with the CSC(s) in place of the various notarised and attested corporate documents which would usually be required for each property transfer in Dubai. We will provide you with a hard copy and soft copy of the CSC to take to transfer with you.
Using the CSC allows the real estate trustee office to handle a large volume of transfers more efficiently and also provides a clear and certified statement as to the UBOs of, and share transfers within, the relevant entities on which the trustee can rely. In most cases, the client will be able to complete the transaction without volumes of original documents and in one attendance at the trustee office.
The CSC is valid for thirty (30) days from its date of issue and can therefore be used for multiple transactions within that validity period.
The CSC does not preclude the need for any company representative to produce an original power of attorney or other acceptable authorisation to the DLD.
Examples of successful transactions implemented by Al Tamimi & Company as part of the Real Estate Lawyer Initiative:
Certifying complex, multiple foreign jurisdiction corporate structure in one CSC, saving the client the costs of legalising and translating more than 100 corporate documents which had been issued in several jurisdictions;
certifying the restructure of a Dubai real estate-holding arrangement in order to meet DLD foreign structuring requirements and to confirm the ultimate beneficial owners of the property to the DLD;
facilitating the fast conclusion of a time-sensitive property transfer for our seller client by certifying the multi-layered foreign corporate structure of the buyer; and
providing a CSC to certify historic share transfers to enable our client to update the DLD records to properly reflect the current corporate structure and to settle outstanding property transfer fees payable to the DLD.
Al Tamimi & Company are working on new products and services we can offer to our clients and we believe this will help investors in their real estate investment journey making this smooth, safe and sound.
In April 2022 we launched our “Wakeel” escrow and conveyancing solution. Wakeel provides an end-to-end real estate service in Dubai offering peace of mind and ensuring that buying your new home and selling your existing home can proceed smoothly without unexpected bumps in the road.
The support of our highly-respected real estate team in dealing with every aspect of your property transaction means that our clients can be confident that the sale or purchase is being managed by professional advisers and at a competitive cost.
For further information, please contact Mohammed Kawasmi or Madeleine Herkes.
Published in July 2022
