Buying from Israel without flying

Every Israeli who has ever sent a document abroad arrives here with the same assumption: get an apostille and you are done. In the UAE that does not work, and it is worth knowing before paying for one.

The 1961 Apostille Convention lists 130 contracting parties. Israel has been one since 14 August 1978. The United Arab Emirates is not on the list.

What follows: an Israeli apostille stamp is not sufficient for a document to be accepted in the UAE. A full chain of attestations is required instead.¹

Here it is worth looking at what the official documents say rather than at what is customarily assumed.

On an off-plan purchase, registration in the interim register is performed by the developer through the Land Department's Oqood portal – the stated service channel is the developers' portal, and the service time is one business day. The buyer is not the one standing at a counter. The document list names a copy of the sale contract, a copy of a valid ID, and a valid passport for non-residents – and a power of attorney where applicable.

On a resale, registration takes place at a Real Estate Registration Trustees centre, and an electronic no-objection certificate from the developer is required in the freehold areas. There too the document list names a valid passport for non-resident foreigners.^3,4

The good news: the checks that genuinely matter do not require a flight, and they are free.

The Land Department's project status enquiry returns status and completion percentage by plot number, project number or name. The Dubai REST app shows the completion percentage, current photographs of the project, the escrow account number and payments falling due.

So what actually protects you – that the project exists, that it is progressing, and that the money is going to the right escrow account – can be verified from a living room in Israel. What is harder to do remotely is see the neighbourhood, the traffic on the road, and what is being built across it.^5,6