Dubai Land Department announces updates in the rental valuation services

Dubai’s property market has been on everyone’s radar, from tenants, foreign investors, and sellers alike, seeing a three-year high among residents - Dubai’s rents continue to stay on the uptick, promising high returns and exciting gains for investors and sellers.

Coming in line with this, the Dubai Land Department has announced further updates in their rental index, rental calculator, and rent evaluation service.

You might remember the news earlier in March about how the RERA calculator was updated to give us correct benchmarks of rents in our area. That was already a big sigh of relief for us all because it meant we knew whether or not we were expecting an increase for the next year. And if we were expecting an increase, we just how much we could expect (yay!).

From April 1, there’s been one more change that we consider the second sigh of relief for renters. If landlords choose to re-evaluate rents above the RERA calculator, they now have to get a judgement or legal order.

In the past few years, landlords had the option to apply for a rental evaluation to adjust the current market benchmark set by the outdated calculator. Landlords used to have the option of paying a fee to the Dubai Land Department to get rental valuation certificates. Today, the updated RERA calculator, clubbed with the new rule around rental valuations, means renters get more transparency around what is and isn’t a fair increase.

In short - less fighting with your landlord when they say your rent is going to be increased by crazy amounts! You can always be prepared to meet your landlord by using the calculator and trusting that info is accurate.

With the recent increase in rental prices, anything to make this whole process easier is a big win!

What do the property experts have to say about this change?

Anisha Sagar, Director of Property Management says; “early figures show that as of Q1 this year, 72,885 rental contracts have been renewed, which equates to 145,770 tenant and landlord decisions. With that kind of volume, it makes sense for the RERA calculator to be used as the single source of truth. Adding this layer of legal requirements allows landlords and tenants alike to be sure that valuation changes are vetted fairly against the updated calculator”.

To see the latest rental prices in your area, for both new and renewal contracts, visit Data Hub by Allsopp & Allsopp.