Off-plan cancellation and refund rights in Dubai

Article 11 of Law No. 13 of 2008 has been replaced three times: by Law No. 9 of 2009, by Law No. 19 of 2017, and by Law No. 19 of 2020, which opens by stating that Article 11 is superseded by the text that follows. The 2020 law is the one in force, and we found no later amendment to it as of 4 September 2026.

The completion bands survived the 2020 rewrite unchanged, which is why so much commentary quotes them correctly while citing the wrong statute. One rule did not survive. Under the 2009 and 2017 texts a developer whose project had never commenced could retain up to 30% of the amounts paid; the 2020 text removes that band and replaces it with a full refund. An article that still gives a developer 30% on a project that never started is quoting law superseded on 24 November 2020.

A developer cannot simply cancel you. Under Article 11(a) he must notify the Land Department of your non-performance on DLD’s prescribed form, describing the unit and setting out which obligations you have breached.

DLD then serves a thirty day notice on you, in writing and dated, delivered in person, by registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt, by email, or by another means DLD prescribes, requiring you to perform. Where possible DLD must also try to mediate a settlement, which if reached is attached to the sale agreement as an executed addendum. That mediation step is a right, not a courtesy.

Only if the thirty days expire without performance or settlement does DLD issue the official document that unlocks the developer’s remedies, and that document must state the project’s percentage of completion calculated under RERA’s own standards. The band you fall into is a certified figure, not the developer’s claim.

With that document in hand, and only then, the developer may act without going to court or arbitration. What he may do depends on the certified percentage.

Above 80% complete. Three options, and termination is only one of them. He may keep the agreement alive, retain everything paid, and claim the balance of the contract value from you. He may ask the Land Department to sell the unit by public auction, with you liable for the costs. Or he may terminate unilaterally, retain up to 40% of the value of the unit stated in the agreement, and refund the excess. This is the worst band to default in, because the first option leaves you owing the rest of the price on a unit you no longer want.

Between 60% and 80% complete. One remedy: terminate unilaterally, retain up to 40% of the value of the unit stated in the agreement, refund the excess.

Below 60% complete, where work has commenced. The law is careful here: the developer must have taken hold of the construction site and started works to the designs approved by the competent authorities. If he has, he may terminate, retain up to 25% of the value of the unit stated in the agreement, and refund the excess.

This is the sentence buyers misread, and it is expensive. The retention is a percentage of the value of the unit stipulated in the agreement, not of the money you have handed over: a ceiling on the developer’s keep, not a haircut on your instalments.

Take an AED 2M unit in the 60% to 80% band. The ceiling is AED 800,000. A buyer 30% through a payment plan has paid AED 600,000, entirely inside the ceiling, so he can be refunded nothing at all. A buyer who has paid AED 1.2M is refunded the AED 400,000 above it. Same unit, same law, and the outcome turns on where you were in the plan.

Below 60% the ceiling on the same unit is AED 500,000, so the first buyer gets AED 100,000 back and the second AED 700,000. Model your own position against the schedule in the payment plan calculator before you decide anything, because on most Dubai plans the amount at risk changes sharply at construction-linked milestones.

In every band, the refund of the excess is due within one year from termination of the agreement, or within 60 days from the date the unit is resold to another buyer, whichever occurs earlier.

Article 11 is written about the buyer who defaults. The buyer’s side of it is one paragraph, paragraph (b), and it is unconditional. Where the developer has not commenced work for a reason beyond his control and without negligence or omission on his part, or where the project is cancelled by a final reasoned decision of RERA, the developer must refund all payments made by the purchasers, following the procedures in Law No. 8 of 2007.

Two paragraphs at the end of the Article are worth knowing. Paragraph (f) makes these rules part of public order, so an act that does not comply is void: a developer cannot contract out of the notice period or the retention ceilings. Paragraph (g) preserves the purchaser’s recourse to courts or arbitration.

Paragraph (c) carves out land: the Article does not apply to a land sale agreement with no off-plan element, which stays governed by whatever the parties agreed. Paragraph (d) applies the Article to agreements concluded before as well as after the 2020 law took effect.

Cancellation is a regulatory act with published grounds. Article 23 of Executive Council Resolution No. 6 of 2010 lets RERA cancel a project on a reasoned technical report in nine circumstances, among them a developer who fails without valid reason to start construction despite holding every approval, one RERA is satisfied has no intention of implementing the project, gross negligence, and bankruptcy. Article 24 gives the developer an appeal, after which RERA’s decision is final.

Article 25 sets the machinery. RERA must prepare the report, notify the developer, appoint a certified auditor at the developer’s cost, and require the escrow agent, or the developer where payments bypassed escrow, to refund the amounts no later than fourteen days from the cancellation.

Article 26 covers the case that actually happens: the escrow account does not hold enough to pay everyone back. Then the developer must refund the shortfall to those purchasers no later than sixty days from the cancellation decision, unless RERA extends the period for valid reasons.

The forum is the Special Tribunal for Unfinished and Cancelled Real Property Projects, established by Decree No. 33 of 2020, which by its Article 16(a) replaced the committee under Decree No. 21 of 2013. Not the ordinary courts, and not the Land Department’s complaint form, which states that it does not handle refunds or contract revocation.

Read the bands as a risk schedule. Exposure is smallest early and steps up as certified completion crosses 60% and again at 80%, which is also when a payment plan asks most of you, so a back-loaded plan and a slow build are not independent risks. Know the developer’s record before you commit, which is what our off-plan catalogue exists to make checkable, and if you are heading for a missed instalment, engage during the thirty day notice rather than after it.

A refund timescale of three to six months from filing to payout, which circulates widely and appears in no government text we read. RERA mediation success rates. The full verbatim text of Decree No. 33 of 2020, of which we could confirm the title, the date and the supersession clause but not the article wording on its refund powers. And any rule for a land plot buyer who has carried out infrastructure works himself, which we looked for and did not find: paragraph (c) carves out land sales generally, and says nothing about that case.