Now here’s a story for you… the cost of housing in Dubai has for a long time been creeping up and up. Well, if you call hikes of 40% a year common, that’s probably defined as more than creeping, that’s LEAP FROGGING! However now there is a 7% rent increase cap if you renew your lease in your existing place each year.
We had a fantastic, spacious apartment in Al Barsha before which you saw many photos of on various blogs. After 10 months in the place (on a 12 month lease) we were asked to vacate by the municipality (kinda like the local council) because it was an illegal development.
All Emiratis are given land by the Government to develop a large house on for personal use. The plans submitted to the municipality on the block we lived were for a large house. The owner, however, built a 13 apartment complex – hence the building was deemed illegal – hence we were asked to vacate. The order is for the owner to tear down the internal walls to make it as per the plan.
Coincidentally, or not, we were asked to vacate by 15th December – the same date as the expiry of the twelve month lease. After fighting and asking questions and looking for support, all tenants eventully secumbed and moved out over the last few weeks. We moved out two weeks ago.
For us, the old place is a watch this space. It’s very possible that this was yet another method used to rid the complex of tenants and hike up the rent with new people moving in. If that’s the case, then the owner would only say “I won the case in court”… conveniently. The rent increase per apartment to the market value is the equiv of $260 per week – yep, that’s Aussie money! Yep, that’s a lot. So, multiply that by 13 and that’s a fair whack of extra money in the owner’s back pocket each year.
OK, enough of the negative – let’s just see…
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