Dubai's RERA approves more than 150 home owners associations

Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) has approved more than 150 home owners associations, the head of the real estate watchdog has said.

“We have registered more than 150 home owners associations,” Marwan Bin Ghalaita, CEO of RERA, told Arabian Business.

“They are in place, the board is there [and] they are…in charge now of deciding how much fees need to be collected, how the common area needs to be managed.”

The majority of the registered associations are in the new areas of Dubai such as the marina, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Old Town and The Palm Jumeirah, said Ghalaita, adding the watchdog had received “a lot” more applications.
Strata law, which allows property owners to take control of a building’s service fees, was decreed in 2007 but only implemented in May last year.

Home owners associations and the first set of service charges must first be approved by RERA.

Under the law, registered homeowner associations have the power to recover service fees from owners who default on payments. Homeowners will also not be able to transfer the deeds of their property until any outstanding service fees are settled.

However, there have been fears that homeowner groups could find themselves insolvent as soon as they take over a building, due to previous owners failing to pay their service fees.

Ghalaita said the biggest problem with strata law is raising awareness. “The problem with home owners associations is once the homeowners association is there, it is the activity of the board to face the owners, not RERA but this education is not there yet,” he said.

“We are new, we keep telling them your home owners association has been established so go to them, talk to them, communicate with them.”

The average service charge for those associations that have already been approved is AED14 per sq ft, said Ghalaita. “There are no caps. We approve the first one and then the second is approved by the owners themselves,” he said.

“The average price so far for Dubai is AED14 per sq ft but it depends on the community and on the building,” he added. “There are no caps by RERA, it depends on the structure itself; you cannot cap it.”

Arabian Business
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Dubai's JLT sees 40% rise in residents in 2010

Dubai Multi Commodities Centre Authority saw a 40 percent increase in the number of companies operating from Jumeirah Lakes Towers free zone in 2010, it said on Monday.

The state-owned zone registered more than 725 new companies in 2010, an average of 60 per month, and as of December 31 had 2,642 total licenses.

About 85 percent of those companies were new to the Dubai market, DMCC said in a presentation to media.

A report from Jones Lang LaSalle on Sunday said office vacancy rates in Dubai reached 41 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, as new supply flooded an already saturated market.

In commodities trading, DMCC said the value of diamonds traded through the emirate in 2010 rose from $7.6bn in the first half of the year to $16.3bn by its end.

Tea trade reached a record 10.6m kilos, while cotton trade hit $57m, DMCC said.

DGCX, the world's largest derivatives exchange, marked a 28 percent increase to record 1.93mn contracts, worth $104bn.

DMCC executive chairman Ahmed bin Sulayem said that financial hardships of the last two years had benefited the 200-hectare free zone, where tenant occupancy rate is around 50 percent.

"It played to DMCC's advantages - key businesses had a difficult time finding [stable] property," he said.

"There's a huge amount of work that's been done," said CEO Malcolm Wall Morris. "When the DMCC launched Almas Tower, only companies registered with the DMCC could purchase [in the building.]"

When space was sold off-plan to non-registered companies, "it sold out in 24 hours" -- so much demand that a decision was made to expand the square footage.

“Now our main infrastructure is completed and we're looking forward to leveraging off that," Morris said. "We have 53 completed towers, and 13 more to be completed in 2011."

He said the DMCC had made its registration process more efficient, with 90 percent of companies completing it in two weeks.

"We're going to make this a place where people really want to come work, live and play," he said.

Arabian Business