Part V — Tenancy & Management
Jointly Owned Property, Owners Associations & Property Management
How a tower full of separate owners legally works — units vs common areas, the Owners Association and its powerful service-charge lien, developer defect liability, insurance, and licensed property management.
Most of what a Dubai broker sells is an apartment — a slice of a building owned by hundreds of people at once. Law No. 27 of 2007 Concerning Ownership of Jointly Owned Real Property is the law that makes that possible, and “jointly owned properties” is a named domain in the official exam scope. It answers three questions: what exactly do you own, who runs the building, and who pays for what?
Jointly Owned Real Property is the whole or part of a building or land divided into Units intended for separate ownership, where parts are designated as Common Areas. A Unit is any apartment, floor, parcel or villa forming part of it. Common Areas are the shared parts shown on the Site Plan, designated for common use (Art. 2). Remember from Chapter 4: the building sits on the register as one real property unit, supplemented by the individual unit records (Law 7/2006, Art. 23).
What you own vs what you share
- Your unit (Art. 8): broadly, everything inside — floors and internal ceilings, non-load-bearing internal walls, internal windows/doors/fixtures, internal connections, and improvements you make.
- Common areas (Art. 7): the structure (foundations, columns, structural walls, roofs, facades, staircases, entrances), parking, recreational facilities and pools, main utility systems, lifts, tanks, pipes and wiring serving more than one unit — and anything else needed for the building’s existence, maintenance and safety.
- Each owner holds an undivided share of the common areas in proportion to their unit’s area (Art. 9) — and the common areas can never be divided or disposed of separately from the units (Art. 16).
Three ownership rules with exam value: a co-owned unit cannot be sub-divided between co-owners without DLD approval (Art. 11); a co-owner selling to an outsider triggers the other co-owners’ pre-emptive right — waivable only in whole, expiring one month after a notarised sale notice, not applicable to sales to close family (Arts. 12–13); and an owner who leases their unit stays jointly responsible with the tenant for compliance with the community rules (Art. 15).
The Owners Association
The Owners Association is legally constituted upon registration of the sale of the first unit (Art. 17). It comprises all unit owners — including the developer for unsold units — and is a non-profit entity with independent legal personality that can sue and be sued (Art. 18). Its constitution documents — the Master Community Declaration, the Site Plan and the OA’s Articles of Association — form part of the title deed (Art. 6).
- Job: management, operation, maintenance and repair of the common areas, under a licence from DLD; it may delegate these powers to a professional manager (Art. 21).
- Votes: each owner votes in proportion to their share (Art. 19).
- Oversight: recall Chapter 3 — RERA supervises OAs and audits their accounts (Law 16/2007), and in today’s practice service charges are billed and collected through DLD’s Mollak system.
Service charges — and the lien that enforces them
Each owner pays an annual service charge for the common areas, calculated by unit area over total area; the developer pays for its unsold units; and no owner can dodge the charge by “waiving” their common-area share (Art. 22). You did the arithmetic in Chapter 8.
Article 25 is the enforcement hammer: the OA has a lien on every unit for unpaid service charges — and the lien survives transfer of the unit to a new owner. If an owner defaults, the OA manager issues a resolution, serves it via Notary Public, and after 3 months it becomes enforceable by the execution judge (the owner may object in court during that window). Broker takeaway: unpaid service charges follow the unit — which is exactly why the developer NOC in a resale (Chapter 7) matters.
Developer liability and insurance
- 10 years: the developer remains liable for structural defects in the building, from the date of the completion certificate (Art. 26(1)).
- 1 year: liability for defective installations — mechanical, electrical, sanitary, plumbing (Art. 26(2)).
- Any agreement contradicting these warranties is void (Art. 26(4)).
- The OA must insure the building for repair/reconstruction (Art. 28) and against liability for damage and bodily injury (Art. 29); premiums are baked into the service charges (Art. 30).
Licensed property management
Beyond OAs, remember from Chapter 3 that RERA licenses and regulates companies managing real properties and residential compounds (Law 16/2007, Art. 5(6)). “Property management” is its own exam domain: a property manager is a licensed professional who operates buildings — collections, maintenance contracting, tenant relations — under RERA supervision, whether for an individual landlord or as the OA’s delegated manager (Art. 21(2)).
Number pack for the drill: OA exists from first unit sale registration · votes and service charges by area share · lien enforceable after 3 months’ notarised notice, and it follows the unit · developer liability 10 years structural / 1 year M&E · pre-emption: 1 month to act on a sale notice, 15 days to give notice of intent to buy. Part V complete — Part VI turns to the professional: valuation, conduct, and the exam itself.