Owners spared of training course

Elected board members do not need to undergo the course offered by the Dubai Real Estate Institute


Dubai: Pay heed, interim board members. Upon registration of your building's owners' association (OA) with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera), elected board members are no longer obliged to undergo the Dh3,000-worth five-day training course offered by the Dubai Real Estate Institute. The onus has, instead, passed on to association managers.

Though Rera's earlier mandate required board members to complete the training course and obtain a certificate of good conduct from the Dubai Police, the regulatory body soon realised this could be impractical. Most interim board members find the Rera-certified course financially cumbersome, especially because they serve in a voluntary capacity.

"It's not mandatory for the board members to do the course. The association manager must take the course, have the specific licence and be registered with the Rera," says Mohammad Khalifa Bin Hammad, head, Real Estate Relations Management, Rera. He adds that 161 OAs have been registered at the Rera so far.

Most interim board members Property spoke to were unaware of the change in requirements. "We were asked to submit our passport and visa copies recently as part of the pre-registration process," says Iona Stanley, interim board member, The Palladium, JLT.

According to Mohammad Nafees, member of The Meadows 1 & 2 interim owners' association, "All the details about the members have to be submitted to Rera, which is the final authority to accept or reject a board member. We need to convince unit owners to become interim board members since it is a voluntary job sans compensation."

The board can either hire an association manager who is a unit owner within the jointly-owned property and granted permission by Rera to manage the OA; or enter into a contract with an OA management company, which is registered and licensed with Rera.

However, well-entrenched association managers argue that the OA course alone is insufficient to perform the complex roles required of a building manager. Says Nima Khanpour, commercial director, Stratum, an OA management company, "You cannot expect a practically inexperienced association manager to be adequately qualified by just obtaining his/her OA certificate from Rera. The necessary skills for association management come from years of experience under the supervision of an experienced association manager, who trains the novice manager to understand the inter-relationships between all components of a building."

Gulf News

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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