Guides
Before you choose a project
The questions an Israeli investor asks long before reaching a project list. Every statement here rests on a primary source – Dubai legislation, or an official publication of the relevant authority – and the links themselves are at the foot of each guide.
Start here
The questions every buyer asks, in the order they arrive.
Is Dubai right for you?
The fit question, asked before the legal one: how much capital it actually takes, when a property under construction starts producing, and what Israel expects.
Can Israelis buy property in Dubai?
Freehold against leasehold, which areas are open, and what registration actually gives you – from Dubai's own property legislation, source by source.
How to check a Dubai developer
What the state already checked before a unit could be offered at all, which checks you can run yourself against the registers, and what registration does not promise.
What it costs beyond the advertised price
Registration fees, handover costs, service charges and the cost of selling – a worked example on a real studio, every line against the official schedule.
Buying off-plan: what protects the buyer
Escrow accounts, the interim register, what happens if you stop paying and what happens if the developer does not deliver – from the legislation itself, and what it does not do for you.
Off-plan or completed: what actually differs
Which register each purchase enters, when the title deed arrives, what happens if you stop paying, and from when service charges are owed – a comparison of the two routes, from the legislation itself.
Getting out: selling, or stopping payment
What a sale before handover requires, and what the law lets the developer do if you stop paying — including how much he may keep.
From the Israeli side
Tax, residency, and what actually requires you to fly.
Tax and reporting: what to ask your accountant
What the Israel-UAE treaty actually says, and the list of questions to bring to your accountant – before the purchase rather than after it.
Residency and property investment
Ownership is not residency, and residency is not something a brochure delivers. What the federal authority publishes, and what must be confirmed with it.
Buying from Israel without flying
What actually requires you to be there, how a power of attorney works for the UAE, and why an Israeli apostille is not enough.
A Dubai mortgage when you do not live there
How much a lender may advance and for how long, why an off-plan purchase is capped at 50%, and why whether anyone will lend to you at all is not a regulatory question.
What the property earns, and what it costs to hold
What comes out of the rent before anything reaches you, why the rent cannot be raised in the first two years, and why there is no yield figure here.
Dubai or Israel: what actually differs
Not which is better, but what differs at the root: which legal system confers the right, what can be checked from a distance, what to settle in Israel first.
By area
The areas we work in, and what is officially documented about each.
Dubai South
The district around Al Maktoum International Airport – what has been officially approved, which plots are designated for foreign ownership, what is not.
Dubai Maritime City
A peninsula created by its own law as a maritime hub, and what that means for someone buying an apartment there – including one question worth asking a lawyer.
Al Marjan Island
The island in Ras Al Khaimah – a different emirate, a different register and different rules. What is officially documented, and what remains expectation.
Three areas, two legal frameworks
What separates the three: which legislation applies in each, how foreign-ownership designation is evidenced, and where Dubai's protections do not reach.
Reference
Not meant to be read end to end – meant to be returned to when a term comes up.