Most apartments and villas in Dubai are part of a jointly owned property, and that single fact drives who manages the common areas, who can be charged a service fee, and how a development is structured in the first place. The governing law is Dubai Law No. 6 of 2019, and it rewards owners who understand it.
What is jointly owned property, and why does it matter?
Dubai Law No. 6 of 2019 (which replaced the earlier Law No. 27 of 2007) governs property subdivided into units and common areas: a building and the land under it, or a plot split into individually owned units. Whether a property is jointly owned is not a matter of impression; the DLD title deed states it. The classification matters for a concrete reason: under Law No. 6 of 2019, service charges may be levied only on the common areas of a jointly owned property. If a property has not been subdivided into jointly owned real property, there is no statutory basis to charge a service fee at all. For any buyer of a unit, confirming the joint-ownership status and reviewing the building's budget is basic diligence, not an afterthought.
Who manages the common areas?
The law sorts projects into three management categories (Article 18). In a major project, the developer manages the common areas and may delegate to a RERA-recognised management company. In a hotel project, the hotel management company manages. In all other projects, the category most units fall into, a RERA-approved management company is responsible. Major and other-category projects must have an owners committee of nine RERA-approved owners, but that committee's role is deliberately narrow: its functions are limited to those the law specifies, the most important being the power to ask RERA to replace an underperforming management company. Owners who expect the committee to run the building are often surprised; the statute keeps day-to-day control with the professional manager.
What warranties does a developer owe?
An off-plan developer in Dubai gives the buyer significant statutory protection against defects. Under Law No. 6 of 2019, the developer must repair structural defects in the jointly owned property for 10 years from the completion certificate (the decennial liability familiar from civil-law systems), and must repair or replace defective installations, such as mechanical, electrical and plumbing works, for one year from handover. These warranties are valuable and time-limited, so an owners committee and individual buyers should log defects and notify the developer well inside the windows, rather than discovering the deadline has passed.
RERA contract or joint-venture SPV?
Developing a plot in Dubai usually comes down to two structures. Under the traditional RERA development contract, the landowner keeps the plot and engages a RERA-registered developer to build and sell off-plan, taking security for its profit share through bank or parent guarantees, escrow top-ups, allocated unsold units and tight contractual controls. The trade-off is that, once the contract is registered, the plot is blocked in the DLD system and control passes to the developer for the life of the project. The alternative is a joint-venture SPV: the landowner and developer incorporate a vehicle that is both landowner and registered developer, which gives the landowner transparency as a shareholder but exposes it to the developer's liabilities and requires gifting the plot into the SPV. Most landowners prefer the traditional contract, backed by robust security; the right answer depends on appetite for control versus risk.
Where jointly owned property disputes go
Disputes over the rights and obligations in Law No. 6 of 2019, service charges, management, owners committees, are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Rental Disputes Settlement Centre, the specialist forum that also handles Dubai tenancy disputes. That exclusivity is important when drafting: a management or development contract cannot simply send Law No. 6 of 2019 disputes to arbitration or the ordinary courts, and a clause that tries to is likely to fail on the point that matters.
In a Dubai building, the title deed decides whether a service charge is even lawful.
Key instruments: Dubai Law No. 6 of 2019 on the Ownership of Jointly Owned Real Property (replacing Law No. 27 of 2007); Dubai Law No. 8 of 2007 (escrow); Dubai Law No. 13 of 2008 (Interim Real Estate Register); Dubai Decree No. 26 of 2013 (Rental Disputes Settlement Centre). General information, not legal advice.