Buying off-plan in Dubai: from booking form to title deed.

Step one: the reservation

The buyer selects a unit and pays a booking deposit — usually between 5% and 10% of the price — against a reservation form that fixes the unit, the price and the payment plan.

This is the moment agencies most often lose money to their own systems. If the unit is not marked as reserved everywhere at once, a second agent sells the same apartment, and somebody has to make a phone call nobody wants to make.

Step two: the SPA

The Sale and Purchase Agreement carries the price, the payment schedule, the unit specification, the expected completion date and the cancellation terms. It is the document that governs everything afterwards.

Buyers should read it, and a serious agent encourages that rather than rushing past it. The clauses that matter later are the ones about delay, specification changes and what happens on missed instalments.

Step three: where the money actually goes

Not to the developer’s general account. Payments go into a RERA-regulated escrow account opened for that specific project, and funds are released to the developer against construction milestones.

This is the single most reassuring fact in an off-plan conversation, and most buyers do not know it. It is the mechanism that stops a developer from funding one project with another project’s money.

Step four: Oqood registration

Once the SPA is signed, the developer has 90 days to register the sale with the Dubai Land Department through Oqood. The buyer receives an Oqood certificate — the official record of ownership while the building does not yet exist.

The 4% DLD registration fee plus a small administrative charge is paid at this stage. Oqood is also what makes double-selling impossible: the unit is now recorded against a named buyer at the DLD.

If a developer is slow to register, that is worth chasing. An unregistered SPA leaves the buyer holding a contract instead of a recorded interest.

Step five: handover and the title deed

At completion the buyer inspects the unit — the snagging stage — settles the final instalment and any outstanding charges, and the temporary Oqood registration is replaced by the title deed.

Service charges begin at handover whether or not the unit is occupied, and this catches investors who budgeted only to the purchase price.

What buyers ask that agents should have ready

Three questions come up on almost every call. What if the project is delayed? — the SPA sets the grace period and remedies, and the DLD monitors project status. Can I sell before handover? — usually yes, subject to a minimum percentage paid and developer approval. What are the total costs? — price, 4% DLD, admin fees, and service charges from handover onward.

An agent who answers these in one call rather than three closes more. It is not persuasion, it is preparation.

Where this breaks down inside an agency

Not in the legal process, which is well defined. It breaks in the inventory: a unit sold twice, a payment plan quoted from an outdated brochure, a project status nobody updated after the developer’s last announcement.

Our off-plan module keeps projects, units and payment schedules as live records rather than documents — a reserved unit leaves availability immediately, and every agent sees the same schedule in the client’s currency. The payment plan guide covers the 60/40 and post-handover structures in detail.