Dubai landlord with history of illegal procedures plays up again

Dubai landlord wrangling with his tenant over eviction, a tenancy extension and lack of maintenance should organised a face-to-face meeting to resolve the situation.

Mario Volpi advises on the latest property issues in Dubai. Satish Kumar / The National

Our tenancy contract expires soon. We were supposed to renew (and advised the landlord that we would renew back in April), but he has failed to provide us with the new tenancy contract since then. He did not want to use a real estate agent and has been drafting a contract on a word document, which Ejari advised that they will not accept. The landlord has also requested us to come to his office to sign the new contract and we have advised that we will do so if we are sent a draft contract with the same clauses as before, which they have failed to do. In June we emailed the landlord informing him that we are buying a property and that we will not renew for another year but we would still give him three months' notice from June 20. He verbally (through his assistant) said it was fine and requested to meet us. Then while we were waiting confirmation of a meeting date, his assistant sent us an email asking us to vacate the property at the end of July because he has "an offer on the property". Having done some reading online, I have realised that the landlord must give us a 12-month notice with a valid reason if he wants us to vacate. I replied to his assistant's email with this information, inviting the landlord to discuss how to reach a workable solution for both parties. I also realised that our tenancy agreement has many illegal clauses such as "the renewal is at the discretion of the landlord" and has no automatic renewal, as we have a clause in the addendum that says "should the tenant fail to inform renewal to the landlord within three months before expiry, tenancy contract will not be renewed for the next year". We do not want to renew for one year and would like a tenancy extension until September 20. This landlord has had a similar case with tenants of his other apartment on the same floor as ours (he owns both properties). They took him to court and they won, three times. Also the landlord has failed to do some requested maintenance work in the property back in March (a window needed to be resealed), saying "you can live with this". Following this, we stopped paying the chiller charges for the property in April. Ideally we would like to reach an amicable solution but if the landlord becomes inflexible, what recourse do we have? Should we renew and give him two months' notice straight away? IK, Dubai

The key to your dilemma is in negotiating staying on for the two extra months. So organise a meeting with your landlord to explain your situation with the hope of finding some common ground. If communications break down, it is important to rely on the law.

A landlord cannot demand your eviction without the proper procedures having been followed. For your landlord to request that you leave, he has to give you 12 months’ notice to vacate for reason of selling, and this should be sent through notary public or registered mail and executed upon the expiry of your tenancy agreement.

You obviously do not need the full 12 months, but to fulfil the legal processes your landlord must follow the above. It seems to me that as you are only seeking an extension of two months there should be no reason why your landlord will not let you stay on for this period, so hopefully you can get the owner to agree. No one wants to fall out over this, but perhaps you may want to remind the landlord that he has already lost three other cases with tenants, so it may be better to just agree terms with you than for things to potentially escalate.

Finally, the clauses in your contract that you mention are in fact illegal and do not form any part of law, and therefore are not enforceable.

Mario Volpi is a real estate professional who has worked in the industry for the past 31 years in London and Dubai. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and they do not reflect in any way those of the institutions to which he is affiliated. It does not constitute legal advice and is provided for information only. Please send any questions to [e-mail]