A Dubai listing tells you the price, the size and the number of bedrooms. Almost everything that determines whether the purchase works out is absent from it, and most of it will not come up unless you ask.
These are the seventeen questions worth asking, grouped by what they protect you from. Some have answers an agent should produce immediately. Some are deliberately awkward. The awkward ones are usually the valuable ones.
On price and value
1. What have units in this building actually sold for in the last six months?
Not listed for — sold for, registered with the DLD. This is the only benchmark that reflects buyer behaviour rather than seller hope. A good agent has these to hand. If the answer is a community average, it isn't an answer: pricing varies enormously between buildings on the same street.
2. What explains the difference between this price and those sales?
If the unit is above the range, there should be a reason attached to the property — high floor, the good view, renovated, vacant on transfer, a larger layout. "The market is strong" is not a reason about this unit.
3. How long has it been on the market, and has the price moved?
A listing that has sat for eight months with two reductions has already been priced by the market, and the market disagreed. That is useful, and it is negotiating leverage.
4. Is the seller under time pressure?
You will not always get a straight answer. Ask anyway. Relocation, a chain, or a completion deadline changes what is achievable on price.
On running costs
5. What is the service charge per square foot for this specific building?
Service charges are published per building on the DLD's Mollak index, not per community. The Dubai range runs from roughly AED 3 to AED 30 per square foot per year, with a tail up to around AED 68 for Burj Khalifa. Villa communities are much lower — Arabian Ranches is about AED 3.50. On a 1,200 sq ft apartment, the difference between AED 12 and AED 22 per foot is AED 12,000 a year, every year.
6. Is district cooling included in that charge, or billed separately?
This is the biggest single driver of service charge variance, and the reason two per-square-foot figures can't be compared at face value. A building at AED 22 with chiller included may cost you less annually than one at AED 14 with a separate chiller contract. Get the total, not the headline.
7. What is the annual rental value the municipality housing fee is assessed on?
The fee is 5% of annual rental value, billed monthly through DEWA. It is the most commonly omitted line in Dubai ownership cost estimates. On a property with a AED 140,000 rental value, that is AED 7,000 a year arriving quietly on a utility bill.
8. Has the building had a service charge increase, or is one proposed?
Major works — facade, lifts, chiller plant — flow through to owners. An owners' association that has just approved a large capital project is information you want before you buy, not after your first invoice.
On the transaction cash
9. What is the total cash I need at completion, itemised?
Ask for lines, not a percentage. On a ready purchase expect roughly 7% of the price all-in: the 4% DLD transfer fee, 2% agency commission plus 5% VAT, the trustee fee at AED 4,000 plus VAT (AED 2,000 plus VAT under AED 500,000), and around AED 580 in DLD admin and title deed charges. On a AED 2,000,000 apartment that is about AED 150,000 on top of the deposit.
10. Am I being charged both a trustee fee and a separate DLD admin fee?
Some cost sheets list the same charge twice under different names. The trustee or "service partner" fee is the AED 4,000 plus VAT item. A second four-thousand-dirham "DLD admin fee" alongside it is a duplicate. Ask which is which.
11. Who is paying the NOC fee?
The developer's no-objection certificate runs AED 500 to AED 5,000 plus VAT. By convention the seller pays it — but conventions live in the MOU, and MOUs get drafted by whoever is holding the pen. Check the clause.
12. Does the mortgage cover any of my fees?
It does not, and any agent telling you otherwise is out of date. Since 1 February 2025 a UAE Central Bank directive has prohibited banks from financing the 4% DLD fee or the 2% agency commission into a mortgage. Both must be liquid cash on top of the deposit. This reportedly affected around 70% of secondary mortgage buyers when it came in, and it is the single most common reason a deal falls over at the last stage.
13. Can the bank arrangement fee be waived?
Mortgage registration is fixed at 0.25% of the loan plus AED 290. Valuation is AED 2,500 to AED 3,500 plus VAT. But the arrangement fee, nominally around 1% plus VAT, is genuinely negotiable and frequently waived. Ask before you accept the offer letter. On a AED 1,500,000 loan that is up to AED 15,750.
A quick way to sanity-check the whole set: run the listing through Binayah Deal Check at Deal Check and it returns the total cash required, itemised, so you can compare it line by line against the cost sheet you have been handed.
On tenancy and possession
14. Is it vacant, and if not, when does the tenancy end and at what rent?
A tenanted unit at below-market rent is worth less than a vacant one, and Dubai's rental regulations limit how fast you can correct that. If you intend to move in, the eviction notice requirements are strict and long. If you intend to rent it out, you inherit the existing rent, not the market rent. Get the tenancy contract and the Ejari registration before you commit.
15. Are there outstanding service charges on the unit?
Arrears attach to the property. The NOC process should surface them, but confirm early rather than discovering them at the trustee office.
On off-plan specifically
16. What is the payment plan, the handover date, and what happens if it slips?
Off-plan is a different cost structure: all-in costs are nearer 4% than 7%, because the developer pays the agent's commission — the buyer pays no brokerage at all — and there is no separate handover fee. The Oqood registration is the 4% DLD fee, paid once on the off-plan price, with a AED 40 admin charge. There is no second 4% at handover, despite what you may read. Developer admin fees run AED 1,000 to AED 6,000, and trustee fees are usually waived.
What you do want in writing is the handover date, the escrow arrangement, and the contractual remedy if the date slips. Also note the off-plan LTV cap is 50% for expats, against 75% on ready property up to AED 5,000,000 and 65% above that — so the cash requirement profile is very different even though the fees are lower.
17. What is this priced at per square foot versus completed buildings nearby?
An off-plan launch has no registered comparables for itself. The honest benchmark is registered resale pricing in genuinely similar completed buildings nearby, and then a judgement about whether the premium is earned by the payment plan and the timeline.
The one question underneath all of them
What would make me walk away?
Decide before you view. A service charge above a number. A yield below a number. A tenancy running past a date. Once you have decided you want a specific property, every one of these questions becomes something you are looking to have explained away rather than answered.
If you would rather have most of this assembled before the conversation, Deal Check takes a listing link, a screenshot or a brochure from any agency and returns comparable registered sales, the itemised cash requirement, rental economics with the assumptions shown, and the specific questions worth asking about that property. Where the data is thin, it says so — which on a new building or a rarely traded layout is the more useful answer.
One closing note on what you are not paying: Dubai has no capital gains tax on property and no annual property tax. The costs are heavily front-loaded into the transaction and then thin out into service charges and the housing fee. That shape is worth understanding, because it means the holding period matters — the transaction costs need time to amortise.