Dubai: Either you must keep paying the installments…..or you are at a high risk of losing all the rights to the properties that you purchased.
More investors are getting notices from the developers for not keeping up with the payments schedule. And in most cases, even though those projects they purchased are delayed by a year or more.
A buyer who missed out on about two installments and also is at risk of losing all of the near Dh2 million he has paid to date said, “It’s particularly hard to have any sympathy for those developers retaining the money of those who, for one reason or another, aren’t able to stick to their payment plan”.
“Especially, when work on the development had stopped or been delayed for a long time. This effectively means that buyers, including myself, were financing the project.
“I know I’m at fault for missing the installments – but these are exceptionally difficult times for all.”
Not the Sole One
Other investors also find that the developers are becoming more rigid about sticking to the payment schedules…… even in the instances where the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in changes to the buyer’s financial or employment status.
In the starting weeks and months of the pandemic, developers, it would seem, were very controllable to make changes other than losing their buyers altogether. Mainly those developers who had launched offplan projects in year 2018-19 and had got only the initial payments.
Very Little Relief
But the developers who were doing well in their project construction are less likely to go easy on rescheduling payments. What they could do is transfer the buyer’s equity into a more recent project thereby providing that the payments also start at a later date.
This transfer, however, comes with a catch. “It can happen as long as the value of the new property is higher,” said Niraj Masand, Director at Artha Realty, a consultancy. “Even then, these will be done only on a case-by-case basis.
“Wherever possible developers are trying to accommodate buyers facing issues – only as long as this doesn’t impact on their cash flows drastically.”
Post-Handover Plans
But the property buyers are expressing that the recent situation offers them no respite. Many are climbing whatever the payment means but they have to keep up with the payments.
Also considering who bought property thinking that they will have years to pay off the money after the handover is in a bind. The two-, three- or even the five-year after the handover payment kick in……after handover.
This implies that whatever payments they are required to make before the handover remains rigid. So, either it is 20 percent or 40 percent of the property value that needs to be paid, it better be.
“When you’ve coughed up between Dh1 million to Dh2 million for an offplan home, and the same market conditions that affected your finances have delayed the hand over by more than three years, is it fair the developer keeps all the money?” asks one property owner.
Any Legal Option?
In order with the legal sources, the involved investors can approach the Dubai Land Department to work out some sort of communications and whereby they don’t lose out on the property for which they have paid installments.
But this is a procedure that requires time. And also if one of the options is for the developer to find another buyer, then in the present market situation, it’s unlikely that the original value will be recovered.
For the original property investor, it’s for sure not the better place to be in…
