Who Pays for the Title Deed and Oqood in the UAE: Buyer or Seller?

The Short Answer: Who Pays the Title Deed and Oqood Fees

On a completed resale in Dubai, the new title deed is produced at transfer, and the registration cost that produces it is customarily the buyer's bill: 4 per cent of the sale price to the Dubai Land Department, plus trustee office charges commonly cited around AED 4,000 to 4,200 and AED 580 in administrative fees. The seller's headline obligation is different in kind. It is not to register anything but to clear the unit so that registration can happen, which is where the developer's no-objection certificate and its fee enter the picture.

Off-plan purchases run on a different document with a different payer. Until a project completes, the buyer's registered protection is Oqood, the interim registration lodged with the Dubai Land Department, and its charge is confirmed at booking and usually funded by the buyer as a line in the payment schedule. At completion, the Oqood record converts into the title deed itself. That is why off-plan buyers sometimes meet the words 'title deed' for the first time years after their first instalment has cleared.

The sentence to carry through this guide is simple: the law sets the registration fees, and the market allocates almost everything else. Custom points the transfer fee at the buyer and the NOC fee at the seller, yet every one of those allocations only becomes real when it is written into Form F or the sale and purchase agreement. A verbal promise about who pays what is worth nothing at the trustee counter. The parties who put the split in writing before deposit money moves are the parties whose transfers run on time.

What Each Fee Actually Is: Transfer Fee, Trustee Charges and Oqood

The 4 per cent transfer fee is the Dubai Land Department's charge for re-registering the unit in the buyer's name, calculated on the sale price recorded at transfer. Trustee offices act for the department at the counter and charge their own fees for the service, commonly cited around AED 4,000 to 4,200 plus AED 580. Most other emirates are commonly cited around 2 per cent instead, each running its own registration system with its own schedule. A buyer comparing emirates should therefore price each transfer separately rather than assuming Dubai's figures travel.

Where the purchase is financed, the loan itself must be registered. In Dubai the mortgage registration is commonly cited at 0.25 per cent of the loan amount plus AED 290, and it is paid by the buyer, because the buyer is the borrower whose loan is being recorded. It sits on top of the transfer fee rather than inside it, and it is one of the lines most often missing from first budgets. Ask the bank to state every lender-side charge in writing with the offer, so the calculator you run matches the invoice you receive.

Oqood is the off-plan instrument: it records the buyer's interest in a unit that does not yet exist as a titled property, while payments sit in escrow under Law No. 8 of 2007. Its charge is modest next to the transfer fee and is confirmed at booking. The discipline is to have the developer state the figure in the sale and purchase agreement rather than accepting a rounded verbal estimate. Keep the Oqood certificate safely; it is the document that proves the interim registration happened and eases the conversion at completion.

• Dubai transfer fee: 4 per cent of the sale price, customarily paid by the buyer at the trustee appointment.
• Trustee office charges: commonly cited around AED 4,000 to 4,200 plus AED 580 in administrative fees.
• Mortgage registration in Dubai: commonly cited at 0.25 per cent of the loan plus AED 290, paid by the buyer-borrower.
• Oqood interim registration: off-plan only, confirmed at booking, usually funded by the buyer and allocated in the sale and purchase agreement.
• Developer NOC on resale: seller-side clearance, commonly cited between AED 500 and AED 5,000 depending on the developer.

Buyer Pays, Seller Pays: The Customary Split on a Resale

Custom, not statute, produces the split most Dubai resales follow. The buyer carries the registration stack: the 4 per cent transfer fee, the trustee charges, mortgage registration where the purchase is financed, and a buyer-side agency commission commonly cited around 2 per cent, which is a matter of the appointment signed rather than anything the law fixes. None of these numbers is negotiable in itself. The transfer fee and trustee schedule are set, and commission is only 'negotiable' in the sense that any private appointment is.

The seller's stack is about cleanliness rather than registration. It centres on the developer's no-objection certificate with its fee, commonly cited between AED 500 and AED 5,000, on the settled service charges and utility dues that the certificate attests to, and on discharging any mortgage registered against the unit. A tenanted unit adds a nuance: the lease and its Ejari registration travel with the unit economically, while the buyer budgets for updating the registration and taking over the deposit obligation afterwards. Rent apportionment for the month of transfer belongs in Form F as well, because tenanted units transfer with money already moving through them.

Two habits keep the split honest. First, list every fee in Form F with a name against it, buyer or seller, line by line, because trustee offices allocate strictly by what the document says. Second, remember that the customary 10 per cent buyer deposit is contract machinery rather than a fee: it is security for the seller while the file completes, and its refundability, holding party and release terms deserve their own clause. Deals argue later about the clauses nobody wrote.

• Buyer: the 4 per cent transfer fee plus trustee charges commonly cited around AED 4,000 to 4,200 and AED 580.
• Buyer: mortgage registration of 0.25 per cent of the loan plus AED 290 in Dubai, where the purchase is financed.
• Buyer: valuation and bank arrangement fees, commonly cited around AED 2,500 to 3,500 plus VAT and roughly 1 per cent of the loan respectively — verify with your bank.
• Buyer: agency commission where agreed, commonly cited around 2 per cent on purchases as custom rather than law.
• Seller: the developer NOC, commonly cited between AED 500 and AED 5,000, plus the settled dues it certifies.
• Seller: mortgage discharge and any early-settlement costs the lender applies — confirm directly with the bank.

Off-Plan and Oqood: Who Pays Before a Title Deed Exists

Off-plan buyers ask a fair question: who pays the title deed fee on a home that has no title deed yet? The precise answer is that the completed-property registration charge arrives at completion, and what the buyer funds during construction is the Oqood registration and the developer's administration charges. Both are confirmed at booking and both should appear as named lines in the sale and purchase agreement. If a payment schedule lumps 'registration' into a round number, ask for the breakdown in writing.

The escrow framework decides where construction money sits. Law No. 8 of 2007 requires off-plan payments in Dubai to route into escrow accounts tied to the project, so instalments fund construction rather than the developer's general account. Registration charges are separate lines from the instalments themselves. A buyer who keeps those lines distinct can always answer the question an auditor would ask: which dirhams bought the unit, and which paid for the paperwork.

At completion, the Oqood record converts into a title deed in the buyer's name, and the completed-property registration charges apply per the authority's current schedule. Developers handle the mechanics, but the cost allocation should already be written into the agreement. Ask for the completion-stage cost list before handover season, not after. Buyers who plan the completion budget twelve months early meet it calmly; buyers who discover it at handover fund it in a hurry.

Law Versus Custom: What Is Fixed and What Is Negotiable

Fixed means set by the authority. The 4 per cent transfer fee, the trustee office schedule, the 0.25 per cent mortgage registration and the Oqood charge are published registration costs in Dubai, and no counterparty can discount them, absorb them into a discount you did not agree, or waive them. What moves is everything around those lines: the price the fee is calculated on, the payment schedule, the inclusions, the handover date and, crucially, which party's budget absorbs each fee.

That is the real negotiating surface. A seller who will not move on price may agree to pay the NOC fee, cover a service charge gap or leave fittings that would have cost the buyer real money. A buyer who cannot stretch the deposit may negotiate the payment milestones instead. The 10 per cent deposit is customary rather than statutory, which means a contract can set a different figure with matching remedies, and agency commissions are appointment terms, not laws.

The practical consequence is about timing. Negotiate allocations while you still have leverage, which is before Form F is signed, not after. Once the contract is signed, a fee nobody discussed defaults to custom, and custom tends to favour whoever drafted the precedent. If a figure matters to your budget, it belongs in the document, spelled out, with a name against it.

Emirate by Emirate: Where the Rules and Figures Differ

Dubai is the loudest market but not the only one, and the figures do not travel. Most other emirates are commonly cited around 2 per cent transfer fees, each running its own registration system with its own schedules and counters. Much of the search traffic around this topic comes from exactly that comparison: owners asking about selling a duplex in Al Nuaimiya in Ajman, a shop in Khalifa City A in Abu Dhabi, or a family apartment in Al Qasimia in Sharjah. Behind every one of those searches sit two questions: what does registration cost here, and can an expat hold and sell this asset at all.

Expat ownership is the emirate-level variable that decides everything else. Foreigners buy with full freehold title in designated zones in Dubai and comparable investment zones elsewhere in the country, and the rules differ emirate by emirate, with Sharjah's routes differing again. Before pricing any resale — a duplex in Ajman, a shop in Sakamkam in Fujairah, an apartment in Abu Dhabi — confirm with that emirate's land department that the specific community sits inside a zone open to expat ownership. The title deed conversation only exists once the ownership right does.

Areas that come up constantly in expat resales — City Walk and Dubai Sports City in Dubai, Business Bay towers, the Abu Dhabi island communities — are straightforward precisely because their zone status is established. The checks that matter there are the ordinary ones: verify the title deed through official channels, confirm the developer's clearance, and allocate the fees in writing. Where zone status is less familiar, slow down and verify first. Speed belongs after certainty, never before.

When the Usual Split Changes: Mortgages, Tenants and Company Sellers

Financing reshuffles the buyer's stack more than anything else. A mortgage adds the 0.25 per cent registration plus AED 290 in Dubai, a valuation commonly cited at AED 2,500 to 3,500 plus VAT, and a bank arrangement fee commonly around 1 per cent of the loan. It can also add a seller-side line that surprises first-time sellers: discharging an existing mortgage takes the lender's process and sometimes early-settlement costs, which the bank will quote directly. Build both sides' lender timelines into the transfer date you write into Form F.

Tenanted units move money that is not part of the price. The security deposit is the tenant's money held against the lease, so it transfers as an obligation from seller to buyer rather than as a fee either party pays. Ejari registration, commonly cited around AED 170 to 220 in Dubai, should be updated to reflect the new owner, and rent paid in advance is apportioned at transfer. All three lines belong in Form F, because all three are exactly the kind of informal understandings that decay after signing.

Company sellers and company buyers change the paperwork without changing the fee logic. Expect trade licences, board resolutions and, where a signatory is delegated, an attested power of attorney, and expect the trustee office to match names character for character across every document. The fees themselves are identical to a personal transfer. The time cost is not, so corporate files deserve an earlier start.

Your Fee-Allocation Checklist Before You Sign

Before anyone signs, run a one-page allocation sheet. List every fee from this guide — transfer fee, trustee charges, mortgage registration, valuation, arrangement fee, NOC, agency commissions on both sides, Ejari update where relevant — and write a name and, where known, a figure against each. Both parties initial the sheet as part of Form F. The exercise takes twenty minutes and removes the single most common source of transfer-day arguments. It also gives your agent a document to work from, which converts goodwill into precision.

Then verify the figures in the week you sign. Every number in this guide is commonly cited and revisable: transfer fees, trustee schedules, NOC charges and bank costs all move, and emirates differ. Confirm current figures with DLD, RERA, your trustee office, the developer or your bank before you rely on them. A five-minute phone call to the authority beats a five-figure surprise at the counter.

Finally, keep the receipts. Registration produces a paper trail — deposit receipts, trustee receipts, the new title deed itself — and that trail is the evidence for banks, visa processes, tenants and the eventual next sale. Scan the complete file the day the transfer completes. The owners who can answer every who-pays question years later are simply the ones who kept the paper.

• Write a named fee allocation for every line — transfer fee, trustee charges, mortgage registration, NOC, agency commissions — into Form F or the SPA before signing.
• Confirm the emirate's current transfer fee with its own land department rather than assuming Dubai's 4 per cent applies elsewhere.
• If financed, ask the bank to state valuation, arrangement and registration charges in writing with the offer.
• Ask the developer to state the NOC fee and its validity window in writing at the start of a resale.
• For off-plan, check the Oqood certificate is issued in your name and payments route through the escrow account.
• Keep every receipt scanned; the receipts are the evidence if any fee is queried after transfer.