Who Handles Maintenance During My Tenancy? — UAE Renter's Guide

The Default Rule: Who Handles Maintenance During My Tenancy

Ask three renters in Dubai who pays when the air-conditioning dies and you will get three different answers. The legal starting point is simpler than the myths suggest: the landlord must deliver the property in a condition fit for its purpose and keep it that way through the tenancy. Dubai's Law No. 26 of 2007, as amended by Law No. 33 of 2008, sets out that maintenance duty, and regulators in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah apply similar logic through Tawtheeq and the Sharjah rental framework. Hedge everything against your own contract, because individual clauses can and do shift minor items between the parties.

In practice the split runs along a fault line between major and minor. Anything structural, anything inside walls, floors or ceilings, and anything that stops you living in the unit comfortably sits with the owner. Day-to-day consumables and light cleaning-type tasks sit with the tenant. Most disputes happen in the grey zone between the two, which is why the contract wording matters more than the poster in the lift lobby.

Before you sign, read the maintenance clause twice and mark exactly which party is named for air-conditioning, water heaters and appliances. If the clause says the tenant must keep the unit in good condition, ask the agent to define that in writing against a short list of examples. A five-minute negotiation at signing beats a month of wrangling in July. Verify current contract templates with a RERA-registered broker or the guidance in the Dubai Rest app before you commit.

What the Landlord Normally Covers

The owner's list is everything the property needs in order to remain habitable and safe. In a Dubai apartment that usually means the systems that came with the unit: the AC machinery, the water heater, the plumbing stack and the electrical wiring behind the sockets. It also covers defects that were present when you moved in, even if they only surface weeks later.

Furnished rentals add nuance. Where the landlord supplied the appliances, the contract commonly makes those appliances the landlord's responsibility, so a failed washing machine in a furnished flat is normally a landlord call rather than yours. In unfurnished units, appliances you brought in are your problem. Read the inventory annex carefully, because it decides who owns each item on paper.

Remember the building layer too. Lobbies, lifts, pools and shared chillers are maintained from the service charge the owner pays, recorded in Dubai through the Mollak system. If a shared system fails — a chiller trip in August, a lift outage — the fix runs through building management rather than your deposit. Verify current Mollak service-charge figures against the building's own statements.

• Structural repairs: walls, ceilings, floors, roofs and balcony safety
• Major air-conditioning faults, compressors and ducting inside the unit
• Water heaters, built-in pumps and pressure problems
• Plumbing beyond the tenant's own blockages: leaks, bursts and design faults
• Electrical wiring, distribution boards and socket faults
• Pest infestations that pre-date the tenancy or arrive from common areas
• Landlord-supplied appliances in furnished contracts, per the inventory

What the Tenant Normally Covers

Tenants carry the small stuff, and the small stuff is best understood as anything a careful resident would do anyway. Light bulbs, washing AC filters, clearing a hair-clogged drain, replacing remote batteries and touching up scuffed paint are tenant-side jobs in most contracts. These items cost dirhams rather than hundreds, and landlords rarely argue about them.

The tenant also owes a duty of care. Damage caused by negligence — a pot that burns the countertop, a door kicked off its track, a laptop dropped down the stairs — sits with the tenant regardless of who owns the item. That principle follows you to checkout and drives most deposit deductions. Cleanliness matters too, because a unit handed back filthy converts cleaning into a chargeable service.

One habit keeps tenants out of trouble: report early. A slow drip under the sink is a tenant report if you catch it in week one and a structural claim if you ignore it for six months. Contracts and tribunals both take the view that a tenant who concealed or delayed a report made the damage worse. Send maintenance requests in writing even when you also phone the caretaker.

Apartments, Villas and Rooms: How the Split Shifts

Building type changes the map. In an apartment, the owner pays service charges that cover common areas and often district-cooling capacity, while you run the inside of the unit. In a villa, tenant and landlord face the systems directly: pool pumps, garden irrigation, water tanks and external AC units all need a decision in the contract. Villas therefore reward a longer maintenance annex than apartments do.

Renting a room inside a shared flat changes the picture again. The master tenant or the landlord's caretaker usually stands between you and the owner, so your repairs channel runs through them. Get the arrangement in writing even for a room, because unsigned or expired room contracts are exactly where notice-period arguments start, particularly in Abu Dhabi where Tawtheeq registration anchors the documents. If your room contract expired and was never renewed, sort the paper before the next repair dispute arrives.

Emirate matters as much as building type. Dubai runs on Ejari registration and the Rental Dispute Centre; Abu Dhabi uses Tawtheeq under ADREC oversight, and Sharjah tenants deal with SEWA for utilities and their own rental committees for disputes. The names change, but the logic of landlord-maintains-the-core rarely does. Verify current figures and forms for your emirate before relying on any general rule.

Emergencies: AC Failures, Leaks and Losing Power

Some repairs cannot wait for a quiet weekend. A total AC shutdown in July, a burst supply pipe, a failed water pump or a full power loss inside the unit are habitability issues, and the landlord's duty responds fastest here. Reasonable contracts commit the owner to emergency attendance within twenty-four hours; softer contracts simply say without undue delay. Either way your job is identical: report it in writing on day one.

Escalate in steps, and keep each step visible. Phone the caretaker, then follow with a message that timestamps the fault and attaches photos or a short video. If the owner stays silent for days, send a formal notice by email and a registered channel stating that the property is unfit and that you will seek a rent reduction through the authority if the fault persists. Tribunals reward tenants who can show a clean sequence of notices.

Two boundaries protect you. First, never stop paying rent on your own initiative because repairs are outstanding — withheld rent can be treated as the tenant's breach, so ask the Rental Dispute Centre for a rent reduction instead. Second, never commission major works and invoice the landlord without prior written agreement unless the contract expressly allows it. Small urgent safety fixes are defensible; a full chiller replacement is not.

The Repair Process Step by Step

Good repair outcomes are mostly process rather than luck. The tenants who get fast service are the ones who make every request easy to approve: a clear fault description, photos, realistic access times and a polite deadline. The sequence below works in Dubai towers, Abu Dhabi compounds and Sharjah walk-ups alike.

Log everything in one place, ideally a single email thread or chat that includes the landlord and the agent together. When a claim eventually reaches the Rental Dispute Centre or its equivalent, the file you kept becomes the case. Hearing officers read timelines quickly, and a tidy one moves decisions your way.

Treat the list below as your standing procedure for the whole tenancy. Print it or save it in the same folder as your contract, so you never wonder what to do when the water heater quits at nine in the evening. The order matters as much as the steps: reports before quotes, quotes before approvals, approvals before invoices. Renters who follow that order collect their deposits without arguments.

• Report the fault in writing within 24 hours, with photos and a short video
• Check the contract annex so you quote the right clause for the item
• Offer two or three realistic access windows for contractors
• Ask for the diagnosis and a quote before approving non-urgent work
• For landlord items, request written approval of cost before works start
• Keep the invoice after completion and photograph the finished repair
• If the deadline passes, send one formal notice, then escalate to the authority

Wear and Tear vs Damage: Protecting Your Deposit

Checkout is where maintenance duties turn into money. Security deposits in Dubai commonly equal five per cent of annual rent for unfurnished units and ten per cent for furnished ones — verify the current convention with your agent — and the argument is almost always the same: the landlord calls scuffs damage, the tenant calls them wear and tear. The question many renters search, what counts as wear and tear vs damage for getting my deposit back in Dubai, has a workable practical answer.

Wear and tear is the natural ageing of a used home: faded paint, minor nail holes, tired door seals, carpet flattened by furniture and AC filters that aged despite cleaning. Damage is event-driven: cracked tiles from a dropped dumbbell, burned worktops, holes in doors, mould from unreported leaks. The first group is normally a landlord cost; the second comes from the deposit. Move-in photos decide most of these debates before they start.

Book a joint inspection at handover and walk the unit room by room against the move-in inventory. Ask for the deductions in writing with quotes attached, and settle the easy ones on the spot. If the landlord inflates the rest, the Rental Dispute Centre hears deposit claims, and Ejari-registered contracts with clean photo evidence rarely lose them. Never trade deposit money for a promise to skip the Ejari cancellation — more on that below.

Utilities, Chiller Charges and Cutoffs That Are Not Allowed

Utilities sit outside the repair debate but shape it. Tenants normally hold the DEWA account in Dubai and pay consumption, while ADDC in Abu Dhabi and SEWA in Sharjah play the same role in their emirates. District cooling providers bill the chiller separately in some buildings, while in others the chiller charge rides on the service charge instead of your own meter. Ask which model applies before you compare rents between two buildings.

Utility deposits are separate from the tenancy deposit, and a disputed bill gives the landlord no right to touch your money. More importantly, the answer to the question tenants keep asking — is the owner entitled to disconnect electricity and water services from the tenant — is no. Self-help cutoffs are not a lawful remedy for unpaid rent or any other dispute; the landlord's route is notice, then the Rental Dispute Centre or its emirate equivalent. A cutoff engineered to force you out is treated severely.

If your water or power is cut by the owner rather than the utility, document it immediately — timestamps, photos of the meter, a medical note if anyone in the home is vulnerable — and contact the authority the same day. In Dubai, RERA and the Rental Dispute Centre handle the fallout, and emergency police channels exist for genuine danger. Restore first, argue second; that order protects you.

Insurance, Ejari Loose Ends and Escalation

Contents insurance is the quiet hero of maintenance disputes. UAE tenants' home insurance costs little per year relative to the appliances and electronics in a modern flat, and it covers the tenant-side losses a landlord's building policy ignores — fire, water damage from your own washer, theft. Landlords increasingly ask for proof of cover in furnished and short-term contracts. Keep the policy live through the whole tenancy rather than just the first month.

Ejari loose ends belong on this list because they surface at tenancy end. If your landlord did not cancel Ejari after you moved out, the old registration can block your next DEWA connection or confuse your rental history, so chase the cancellation in writing and attach the checkout letter. Registered contracts also protect you in deposit claims, which is one more reason to decline a cash deal with no registration. On that note — a landlord requesting payment in cash is not automatically improper in the UAE, but untraceable rent is a poor idea: pay by traceable transfer and keep every receipt.

When maintenance disagreements harden, the escalation ladder is short. In Dubai: written notice to the landlord, then a case with the Rental Dispute Centre, whose fees scale with the claim and whose decisions are enforceable. Abu Dhabi renters go through ADREC channels, and Sharjah renters through the emirate's rental committees. Verify current fees and forms before filing, and bring the paper trail you kept from day one — it is the strongest asset you have.