Off-plan is how most new homes in the UAE are sold: you commit before the building is finished, pay in instalments tied to construction milestones, and take the keys at handover. These guides walk through every stage, from pricing a payment plan against your own cost of capital to registering your Oqood with the Dubai Land Department, so you know what you are signing and what protects your money along the way.
Near-handover buyers get direct snagging and the one-year warranty, but the developer-customer, discount and financing advantages hold only under conditions.
The contracts state no interest rate. That is not the same as deferral being free. Here is the present-value arithmetic no developer page runs.
The 30-40% paid-in threshold is a developer term, not a RERA rule. What the NOC requires, what an exit costs and what can block it.
Article 27 of Law No. 6 of 2019 bars collection before RERA signs off the budget. And why no honest AED-per-square-foot table exists.
Off-plan was 56.9% of Q2 2025 transactions by volume and 37.3% by value. Both figures are right, and most commentary quotes only the first.
It is regulated. Law No. 8 of 2007 requires every buyer payment to be deposited into a project-specific escrow account held with a Dubai Land Department-approved trustee bank rather than paid to the developer directly, and the project must be RERA-registered. Verify both on the Dubai REST app before paying anything. Regulation reduces the risk of misapplied funds; it does not remove delivery risk.
The contracts do not state an interest rate, so on that narrow point the description holds. It is not the same as deferral being free: spreading 80% of a price across three years of construction has a real economic value that depends on what your cash would otherwise earn. Our payment plans guide runs the present-value arithmetic.
Usually, through an assignment: you transfer your position in the existing sale and purchase agreement to a new buyer with the developer's no objection certificate. Developers set their own minimum paid percentage before they will issue the NOC, and commonly cited 30% to 40% thresholds are contractual terms rather than a RERA rule.
The SPA sets a grace period, commonly 6 to 12 months. Beyond that your remedies depend on the contract and on whether RERA cancels the project. Article 11 of Law No. 13 of 2008 as amended governs what a developer may retain if the buyer is the one who defaults; a full refund provision exists elsewhere in the same statute but applies when the developer fails to commence construction or RERA cancels the project.
