I am looking to move into a new apartment and have found a great deal, however, I have some doubts about the transaction and the way it is being carried out. This property is located in Downtown Dubai and I have received scanned copies of:
1. Rera (Real Estate Regulatory Agency) licence of the company
2. Rera licence of the owner of the company
3. Passport of both landlords
4. Title deed of the property
According to the agent, the owner currently lives in Oman and will only travel to Dubai to sign the contract. I would not have access to the original documents until then. Based on several blogs and articles, I have tried to get the title deed verified by several entities but they will not agree to do it. The registration trustees said they only do it for clients and the Dubai Land Department (DLD) said they only provide such a service to the owner or the Power of Attorney (PoA). Using the provided title deed, I entered the data on the DLD e-service portal, which did not return any result. I believe I haven't completed the details as required as I could not verify the apartment I am currently residing at either. How can I proceed on this issue? SS, Dubai
The only way to verify a title deed is exactly how you have already tried, ie via the e-services portal. If this is still not bringing you the desired results, I suggest you personally visit the DLD to explain your concerns about verifying documents to ensure you will be writing cheques to the correct people. Despite the DLD offering this service only to owners or PoAs, you will most probably be able to get clarification.
The only other suggestion would be to make the verification of the title deed a condition of you signing the rental contract, therefore putting the burden of proof back on to the owner. If he is not willing to do this, I suggest you look for another property. Rental scams are becoming rarer but they do still happen, so it is important to be vigilant and carry out due diligence. If a deal looks too good to be true, it often is.
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Read more:
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I moved out of my apartment in November last year, and received an e-mail confirmation of the amount of money we were due to get back from the landlord. Since then, they have used every excuse under the sun to not return the deposit to us. Is there anything we can do to legally to get them to pay us back? VH, Dubai
I do not know exactly what sort of communication you have had with the landlord, but what I can see is that you have been legitimately waiting for the return of your deposit since last year. The only way of attempting to legally close this chapter would be to initially threaten to file a case at the Rental Dispute Settlement Committee. Then if that doesn’t work, you need to actually file the case. The cost to do so is 3.5 per cent of the annual rental amount. From an economical point of view, you will have to weigh up the cost of opening the case against the value of the deposit. In reality, the party that wins is also normally awarded costs too but this is not always guaranteed.
Mario Volpi is the chief sales officer for Kensington Exclusive Properties and has worked in the property industry for over 30 years in London and Dubai. The opinions expressed do not constitute legal advice and are provided for information only. Please send any questions to mario.volpi@kensington.ae
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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The biog
First Job: Abu Dhabi Department of Petroleum in 1974
Current role: Chairperson of Al Maskari Holding since 2008
Career high: Regularly cited on Forbes list of 100 most powerful Arab Businesswomen
Achievement: Helped establish Al Maskari Medical Centre in 1969 in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region
Future plan: Will now concentrate on her charitable work
