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Off-plan or completed: what actually differs

This is not a question of which route is better. The two rest on different laws, enter different registers, and expose you to entirely different risks. This page sets them side by side.

Written by Updated To be re-checked by

The legal differences, in a table

Every row here rests on a provision in the legislation rather than on market practice. The differences that are not legal – income, horizon, liquidity – are in a separate section below, deliberately.

What differsBuying off-planBuying completed
Which register the transaction entersThe Interim Real Property Register. Article 3 of Law 13/2008 requires every disposition of an off-plan unit to be entered in it, and makes it void if it is not. This is the registration known as Oqood.The Property Register. Article 9 of Law 7/2006 provides that every transaction creating or transferring a real property right is to be recorded in it, and is not valid unless recorded.2,1
When the title deed arrivesAt handover, through a separate Land Department procedure – completing the interim procedures and issuing the title deed.At the transaction itself. The sale registration is the service that transfers ownership and issues the deed.8,7
Where the money goesInto an escrow account in the project's name (Article 7 of Law 8/2007), dedicated exclusively to its construction. Under Article 9, no attachment may be imposed on it for the benefit of the developer's creditors.There is no project under construction, so Law 8/2007 – which concerns escrow accounts for real estate development – is not the framework. What protects the buyer is the registration itself.4,1
If you stop paying part-wayThe Article 11 mechanism engages, in the text substituted by Law 19/2020: notice to the Land Department, a 30-day notice, mediation, and certification of the completion percentage – by which what the developer may retain is set.The mechanism is built around a stage where part of the price has been paid, ownership has not yet passed, and the construction's completion percentage is what governs. In an ordinary completed purchase, where payment and registration happen at the same moment, there is no such stage. Where a transaction is structured differently – deferred payment, for instance – ask what applies.3
If the other side does not performAn unfinished or cancelled project is heard by the Special Tribunal established by Decree 33/2020. Where a project has not commenced or was cancelled, Article 11 in its current text provides for a refund of all payments.The dispute is between two parties to a transaction that was or was not registered, rather than around a project under construction – and so not within that tribunal's jurisdiction.6,3
From when service charges applyArticle 25 of Law 6/2019 places the obligation on the owner. Until handover the unit is not yours, and the law requires the developer to pay for unsold units.From purchase. You are the owner, so the annual charge is yours from day one.5,9

Two notes on what the table does not say. First, the payment structure itself – how many stages, and when – is contractual rather than statutory; the law enters when something goes wrong, not to set your schedule. Second, fees are deliberately absent as figures: the Land Department's schedules are the source, and the costs guide sets them out. A number quoted without a source and a date is precisely what this site does not do.

Two registers, not one

The single difference from which nearly all the others follow is this: buying off-plan and buying completed are not two versions of one procedure. They enter two different registers, established by two different laws, and give you a different thing at the moment you have paid.

In a completed purchase, Article 9 of Law 7/2006 provides that a transaction creating or transferring a real property right is to be recorded in the Property Register, and is not valid unless recorded. The registration is what turns the transaction into a right – and it happens at the transaction itself.

In an off-plan purchase, what is registered is not ownership of an existing apartment. Article 3 of Law 13/2008 requires a disposition of an off-plan unit to be entered in the Interim Register, and makes it void if it is not. This is the registration called Oqood, and it is what you hold until handover.

So the two questions to ask are not the same question. For a completed property: was the registration made? For an off-plan purchase: was the interim registration made in my name, and what is required for it to become a title deed at handover?1,2

The differences that are not legal

What follows does not come from a statute, and so is not cited to one. These are structural features of the two routes, and they are usually what actually decides the question – but they belong to judgement rather than to legislation, which is why they are kept apart.

  • Income. A completed property can be let immediately. An off-plan unit yields nothing until handover, and that whole period is capital tied up.
  • Staging. Off-plan calls for the capital in stages across construction; a completed purchase calls for all of it at the transaction. Two investors with the same free capital are not facing the same option.
  • Certainty about what you got. In a completed property you see the apartment, the building, the neighbours and the state of maintenance. Off-plan you see a plan and a render.
  • Delay. Off-plan carries a timetable risk that a completed purchase simply does not. An escrow account protects what the money is for, not the handover date.
  • History. A completed property has a past you can check – service charges actually levied, the condition of the common property, the standard of the build. An off-plan project has only the developer's past.
  • Liquidity. Both can be sold before and after handover, but selling an off-plan unit also depends on the stage the project has reached and on the transfer terms in the agreement.

What to check, by route

The checks are not the same checks, and that is the main practical reason to know which route you are on. Everything below is public and free.

  1. Off-plan: that the project is registered, and its completion percentage

    The Land Department's project status enquiry returns status and completion percentage by plot number, project number or name. Dubai REST adds current photographs, the escrow account number and payments falling due.10,11

  2. Off-plan: that the interim registration was made in your name

    After the first payment, ask for proof of the Oqood registration. Article 3 makes an unregistered disposition void – this is not a formality to be caught up on later.2

  3. Completed: that the sale was registered and the deed issued

    Article 9 of Law 7/2006 makes an unregistered transaction invalid. The Land Department's property sale registration page sets out the procedure and the documents required.1,7

  4. Completed: what has actually been levied in service charges

    Here there is a history you can ask for, unlike a project not yet handed over. Article 27 of Law 6/2019 provides that a service charge budget requires RERA approval following audit by an approved firm – so there is a document, not just an estimate.5,9

What neither route gives you

  • Neither makes the price you paid a sensible one. Registration establishes that the right is yours, not that its value matches what you paid.
  • Neither guarantees there will be anyone to rent to, or at what price.
  • Neither checks the other side for you – the developer's financial standing on one route, the condition of the property and the building on the other.
  • On both, the protections operate after something has gone wrong. They set out what you are owed; they do not prevent the problem.

The practical conclusion is not that one route is safer. It is that the two demand different checks, and that the diligence which fits one says nothing about the other. Anyone who checks an off-plan project with the tools for a completed one – or the reverse – has been rigorous about the wrong thing.

Common questions

What is the main difference between buying off-plan and buying a completed property in Dubai?
The register. An off-plan purchase is entered in the Interim Real Property Register under Article 3 of Law 13/2008 – the registration known as Oqood – and the title deed is issued only at handover, through a separate procedure. A completed purchase is recorded in the Property Register under Article 9 of Law 7/2006, and ownership passes at the transaction itself. Nearly every other difference follows from this.
Does the escrow account protect me when buying a completed property too?
No, and that is not a shortfall. Law 8/2007 concerns escrow accounts for real estate development: it requires an account in the project's name to receive purchasers' payments, and shields them from the developer's creditors. In a completed purchase there is no project under construction for the money to be dedicated to – what gives you the right is the entry in the Property Register, which happens at the transaction.
From when do I pay service charges?
Article 25 of Law 6/2019 places the obligation on the owner, apportioned by the unit's area against the total. In a completed purchase you are the owner immediately, so the charge applies immediately. Off-plan, the unit is not yours until handover, and the same article requires the developer to pay for unsold units.
If I stop paying, what is the difference between the two routes?
Off-plan, the Article 11 mechanism engages, in the text substituted by Law 19/2020: the developer notifies the Land Department, which serves a 30-day notice and attempts mediation; if the breach persists it certifies a completion percentage, by which what the developer may retain is set. The mechanism is built around a stage where part of the price has been paid, ownership has not yet passed, and the construction's completion percentage governs – a stage that does not arise in an ordinary completed purchase, where payment and registration happen at the same moment. If your transaction is structured differently, ask what applies to it.

Sources

Every link here is to a publication of the issuing body itself. If something on this page looks wrong to you, the source governs – not us.

  7. Property Sale Registration – official fee schedule and required documents

    Dubai Land Department (DLD)Checked 8 August 2026

  10. Real Estate Project Status Enquiry – DLD online service

    Dubai Land Department (DLD)Checked 8 August 2026

  11. Dubai REST – the DLD's official application

    Dubai Land Department (DLD)Checked 8 August 2026

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