Mashriq Elite · Glossary
Between a booking form and a title deed you will meet escrow, Oqood, NOC, BUA, snagging and a service charge, most of them for the first time and several of them on the same afternoon. This page defines 59 of them.
Where a term carries a figure we publish — the transfer fee, the Golden Visa threshold — the figure is here. Where it carries one we cannot verify this quarter, such as a service charge rate, the entry says what the term means and tells you who to ask for the number instead. A definition with an invented number in it is worse than no definition.
Buying
A home bought before it is built, from drawings and a specification rather than a walk-through. Payment is staged against construction progress, and the developer registers your interest with the Dubai Land Department before completion.
A completed home you can inspect before you buy. The opposite of off-plan, and the only kind where what you saw is what you get.
A computer-generated image of a design, drawn before the thing exists and drawn to sell it. Useful for shape, light and room arrangement; not evidence of a material, a manufacturer or a finish.
Reservation
A fixed charge the developer collects at booking for processing the sale and its registration. It is quoted in writing on the sales offer, beside the Land Department fee.
The first instalment, paid when a unit is reserved. The booking is secured once it has been received, together with the Land Department fee and the registration charges.
The first document, signed with the reservation deposit. It names the unit, the price and the payment plan, and it commits you before the Sale and Purchase Agreement is drawn.
A deposit some developers take before a launch to hold a buyer's place in the queue. It is not a booking: no unit is allocated until the booking form is signed.
A quotation for one unit on one payment plan: the price, each instalment with its due date, and the fees. It is not a reservation; the unit is held only once the booking form is signed and the deposit received.
Oqood & SPA
Selling an off-plan home before it is handed over. The new buyer takes over the SPA, the developer issues an NOC, and the Oqood registration moves to the new name at the Land Department.
The Dubai Land Department's register of off-plan sales. Your purchase is registered immediately on booking completion, by paying the down payment and signing the SPA, and your ownership documents are accessible online, which is what stands between you and a unit sold twice.
DLDEscrow accountTitle deedWhat Escrow and Oqood Actually Protect →
The SPA's table of instalments: each percentage, what triggers it — booking, a construction stage, a date or completion — and when it falls due.
The contract between you and the developer. It carries the unit, the area, the price, the payment schedule, the completion date and what happens if that date moves. Read the delay clause before the specification.
Money
The Dubai Land Department's registration fee on a property transfer: 4% of the purchase price, paid once. Every party knows the figure before anyone starts.
A RERA-regulated account holding buyers' payments for one project. Money is released to the developer against verified construction progress, not on request. It protects the money; it does not guarantee a completion date.
A long-term UAE residence visa that property worth AED 2,000,000 or more can support. It is a threshold on property value, not a product a developer sells.
The schedule of instalments between booking and handover, quoted as percentages. A 30 / 70 plan means 30% falls during construction and 70% on handover.
A payment plan whose final tranche falls after you have the keys, usually as monthly instalments. It lowers what you pay before you can use or let the home, and it is the developer, not a bank, carrying it.
A year's rent as a percentage of the price paid. Gross yield ignores costs; net yield takes off the service charge, maintenance and letting fees first.
The part of the service charge saved against large future repairs — a lift replacement, a chiller overhaul — so they do not arrive as a separate demand on every owner at once. A thin reserve is a warning.
The annual charge, levied per square foot of your unit, that funds the shared parts: pool, gym, lifts, lobby, cooling infrastructure, cleaning, security, insurance and the reserve fund. Set per project and revised, so the only useful figure is the current one for the project you are buying in.
Reserve fundOwners associationChiller / district coolingWhat service charges pay for →
Registration and Law
The government body that registers property ownership in Dubai and collects the transfer fee. Your title deed and your Oqood registration both come from it.
Dubai's tenancy registration system. A lease has to be registered on it, and the registration is what utilities, visas and disputes are hung from.
Ownership of the property and its share of the land, without a time limit, available to any nationality in designated areas of Dubai.
A building in which each owner holds a unit outright and shares the common areas with the others. Dubai's law on such buildings sets how the common areas are run and paid for.
The right to use a property for a fixed term, commonly up to 99 years, after which it reverts to the freeholder. Not the same as owning it.
The Land Department's system for jointly owned buildings. Service charge budgets are approved and published through it, so an owner can see what the charge pays for.
A developer's written confirmation that it does not object to a transaction — a resale, a transfer, a fit-out. Required at transfer, and usually chargeable.
The body of all owners in a project, which sets and collects the service charge and appoints the managing agent. You join it by buying.
An office approved by the Land Department to carry out property registrations on its behalf, such as a title deed transfer on a resale.
The Dubai Land Department's regulatory arm. It registers projects, licenses brokers and governs the escrow account your off-plan payments sit in.
The Dubai Land Department document naming you as owner. On an off-plan purchase it is issued after handover and final payment; before that, Oqood is the record.
Drawings and Areas
The shared floor on top of the podium: pool, gym, play area, landscaping. Its size and orientation decide whether the shared parts of a project are usable in July.
The outdoor space attached to a home. It is counted in the total area, not in the suite area.
The total area of a unit measured to the outside of its walls, including internal walls and usually the balcony. It is larger than the floor you can walk on, which is why the suite area matters too.
The drawing of a unit, room by room, with dimensions and the printed total area. It tells you the shape of a home, where the light comes from and what furniture will actually fit.
How a project's height is written on drawings and permits: Ground, Podium, the number of typical floors, Roof. G+P+6+R is a ground floor, a podium, six residential floors and a roof level.
A small room for live-in help, usually beside the kitchen, shown after the bedroom count on a unit type.
Dubai's ten-digit geographic address, unique to a building entrance. More reliable than a street name for finding a site or a sales centre.
The land the building stands on, measured to its boundaries. A tall building can hold many times its plot area in floor space.
The built base of a project, usually holding parking, with the amenity deck on top of it and the apartments above that. It is why a pool can sit three floors up.
The total area of the homes and shops a building offers for sale. Lobbies, corridors, plant rooms and parking are outside it; they are part of the built-up area.
A home with the bedroom and living space in one room, plus a kitchen and a bathroom.
A small extra room, shown as '+ S' after the bedroom count. It suits an office or a nursery and is not counted as a bedroom.
The internal floor area of a unit, excluding the balcony. Compare suite to suite when you compare two homes; comparing BUA to suite flatters whichever is quoted as BUA.
Suite area plus the balcony or terrace. It is the figure in our floor-plan tables and on a sales offer.
A home over two or more levels with its own entrance, attached to its neighbours. Floareá Breeze has four, at the base of the building.
The letter that names one drawing of a unit type. One-bedroom homes can come as Type A, B and C: the same bedroom count in different shapes and areas.
A home's bedroom count: studio, one, two or three bedrooms, with '+ S' for a study and a maid's room shown where there is one.
Handover and Living in It
The certificate issued when a building is finished and fit to occupy. Handover to buyers follows it.
How air conditioning is supplied and billed. District cooling is piped from a central plant and billed separately from DEWA, sometimes with a fixed capacity charge whether you use it or not. Ask which arrangement a project is on before you buy.
Everything in a project you own a share of rather than outright: lobby, corridors, lifts, pool, gym, plant rooms, landscaping. The service charge maintains them.
The period after handover during which the developer remains responsible for putting defects right. Its length and what it covers are written in the Sale and Purchase Agreement, so read them there.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. Your connection is opened in your name at handover, against a deposit, and the account follows the unit rather than the person.
The point at which a completed unit is transferred to you and the keys change hands, after final payment and registration.
SnaggingTitle deedDefects liability periodThe delivery ledger →
The company that plans a whole community and sells plots within it to sub-developers. Roads, utilities and the master plan are its responsibility; the individual project on a plot is not.
The inspection you make before accepting a finished home, listing every defect for the developer to put right. Do it before you sign the handover, not after.
Where are these used in earnest?
A definition is a starting point, not an answer. The pages that use these words to decide something are the buying guide, the payment plans, the delivery ledger and the questions we are actually asked.