Dubai property scams: the official checks to run before you pay anyone

How Dubai property and rental scams actually work

In the case Dubai Police investigated and publicized in June 2026, fraudsters copied photos and details from a real chalet listing, reposted them at an unusually low price, and once a renter responded, asked for a transfer described as a booking deposit, documentation fee or insurance before any viewing or signed contract took place. One victim in that case lost AED 8,000. The price itself was part of the warning sign: Dubai Police's own guidance from the same period names a rental price that sits noticeably below comparable properties in the same area as one of the clearest signals something is wrong, alongside pressure to pay before you've seen the unit in person.

A separate case followed the same basic shape with a different ending. Dubai Police arrested a man who had posted fake apartment-rental adverts while posing as the landlord, collected a deposit meant to secure the unit, and then cut off all contact once the money cleared. A Khaleej Times investigation published in mid-2025 found a version of the same scheme running at scale on Facebook Marketplace and Dubizzle: one agent repeatedly collected booking fees of roughly AED 300 to AED 2,800 from different prospective tenants responding to the same listing, blocked each one after payment, and reposted the unit to a new group.

Off-plan buyers face a different version of the same risk: a developer, or someone posing as one, that never delivers. Dubai courts jailed two men and ordered restitution after they defrauded roughly 600 investors through a fictitious real estate firm that advertised projects that didn't exist; one named victim alone lost AED 422,000. That case involved property marketed in Turkey from Dubai-based offices rather than a Dubai development itself, so it illustrates how a fake-developer scheme runs rather than showing this exact pattern active in Dubai's own off-plan market right now.

One thing these cases have in common: the money moves before anyone can independently check whether the listing, the agent or the deposit request is real. The rest of this guide covers the official tools that let you check first.

Verify the advertising permit before you contact anyone

Every real estate advertisement published in Dubai, online or offline, must carry a valid advertising permit number issued through the Dubai Land Department's Trakheesi system. You can confirm a permit is currently valid and tied to a genuine listing using the DLD's official "Verify License and Permits" eService on dubailand.gov.ae, or the equivalent check in the Dubai REST app.

Since the Land Department's Madmoun service took effect on 24 April 2023, Dubai real estate ads also carry a QR code tied to the advertising permit; scanning it shows the advertising company's details and the property's condition and specifications, so you can check an ad's authenticity before contacting anyone listed on it.

Two caveats are worth knowing before you go looking for a permit number on a listing page. First, commentary on recent portal interface changes reports that Trakheesi permit numbers are no longer displayed publicly on many Dubai portal listing pages themselves. The underlying permit requirement hasn't been removed; it's the display that has changed, so if you don't see a number on the page, that alone doesn't mean the listing is fake. This observation comes from a property-industry commentator rather than a Land Department circular, so treat it as a current trend rather than a confirmed, permanent policy, and ask the agent directly for the permit number if the listing page doesn't show one.

Second, you may come across advice online claiming that a permit can be checked by sending its number by SMS to a short code, or that a Trakheesi permit is only valid for a fixed number of weeks before it needs renewing. Both details circulate across several agency and portal blogs, and neither could be confirmed against a Dubai Land Department primary page or an official Trakheesi user guide. Stick to the Land Department's own website eService or the Dubai REST app, since those are the two verification channels the Land Department itself confirms.

Verify the broker's RERA registration

Before you deal with anyone claiming to represent a landlord or a developer, check whether they're actually a licensed broker. The Dubai Land Department's public "Licensed Real Estate Brokers" directory lets you search by broker name, office, mobile number, area, or Office Registration Number, with filters for mortgage, lease and sale brokers, to confirm a named agent is currently licensed and see which brokerage they're registered under.

A name search needs at least two characters and works well enough, but it's less precise than searching by the full Office Registration Number or broker ID if you have it, which helps when a common name returns multiple results and you need to match the right person to the right brokerage.

Verify ownership and the title deed through Dubai REST

If you're far enough along that someone has shown you a title deed, or claims to own the property outright, the Land Department's "Verify Title Deed" eService lets you confirm the validity of an existing Certificate of Title by entering its certificate number, certificate year and property type, available on the Land Department's own website and in the Dubai REST app, with an immediate result and no stated charge.

Dubai REST itself is the Land Department's broader smart real estate platform: property owners, tenants, brokers, developers, valuators and investors can use it to access Land Department services directly, including a real estate wallet showing rental yields and service charges, lease registration and renewal, and off-plan project updates. One correction worth making here, since it circulates often enough to look authoritative: the Land Department's own description of Dubai REST doesn't define "REST" as an acronym for anything, including the "Real Estate Self Transaction" expansion that appears on some third-party blogs. That expansion isn't on the Land Department's own page.

For off-plan purchases, check the developer and the escrow account

Off-plan buying adds a step, because there's no existing title deed yet to verify. Start with the Land Department's "Licensed Developers" eService, which lists every developer currently approved by the Land Department, accessible on the Land Department website or the Dubai REST app; confirm the company marketing the project is on that list before you engage further.

Then look at how payments are structured. Under Law No. (8) of 2007 Concerning Escrow Accounts for Real Estate Development, a Dubai developer may not collect payments from an off-plan buyer until it has opened a dedicated, project-specific escrow account at a Land Department-approved bank, and funds are released from that account against verified construction milestones rather than at the developer's own discretion. If a seller asks you to pay into an account that isn't described as that project's escrow account, treat that as a reason to stop and ask why.

Safer payment practice

Some advice circulating in property Facebook groups and agency blogs treats paying a holding deposit directly into a broker's personal bank account as a normal, low-risk step once the broker has shown a RERA card. Dubai Police's own guidance, repeated across confirmed 2025 to 2026 case files, says the opposite: avoid transferring any booking deposit or fee before visiting and inspecting the property in person and verifying the landlord's or agent's identity through recognised channels. Paying into an individual's personal account on request is a recurring feature of the scams police describe, not a safe workaround once someone has been verified.

That lines up with the cases above. In the AED 8,000 chalet case, the request for payment came before any viewing took place. In the Facebook Marketplace and Dubizzle pattern, the same listing was reused on different victims precisely because a payment receipt, rather than a signed and registered contract, was what each "tenant" ended up with for their money. Viewing the property first, verifying the counterparty through the official channels above, and paying through traceable, documented methods tied to a registered contract are the practical defenses this evidence actually supports.

Where to report a scam and what recourse exists

If you believe you've encountered a fraudulent listing or already lost money to one, Dubai Police operates the eCrime Hub (eCrime.ae) as a 24/7 online channel for reporting cybercrime and online scams, including fraudulent property advertisements; reports can be filed confidentially, and you don't need to already be a confirmed victim to file one.

For a rent dispute with a landlord or tenant, the Rental Disputes Center has exclusive jurisdiction over rent disputes in Dubai, including in free zones. It was established by Decree No. (26) of 2013, and its jurisdiction was expanded in 2019 to also cover jointly-owned property disputes under Law No. (6) of 2019. It's worth correcting a claim that circulates about the Rental Disputes Center: it was not merged into the Dubai Courts system under a 2024 judicial restructuring. Decree No. (29) of 2024, which set up a tribunal to resolve jurisdictional conflicts between the DIFC Courts and Dubai's onshore judicial bodies, defines "Judicial Bodies" to include the Dubai Courts and the Rental Disputes Centre as separate, named entities.

Registration matters here in a concrete way. Article 4(2) of Law No. (26) of 2007 Regulating the Relationship Between Landlords and Tenants requires every lease covered by the law to be registered with RERA through Ejari, and bars judicial authorities and government departments from considering any dispute or claim related to a lease unless it's registered. That is the real consequence of skipping Ejari. It isn't the AED 50,000 fine quoted in older blog posts, a figure that traces to a single 2010 news report and isn't backed by any current Land Department fee schedule or RERA circular. Either way the practical advice is the same: get the tenancy contract registered, or risk having no authority willing to hear a dispute about it at all.

Quick reference: official verification tools