Four ways to own in Dubai.
Mulki is for the years after the purchase. What you need from it depends on what you hold, so each of these starts in a different place.
- One property
The home you live in.
For the place you actually live in. One deed, one valuation, kept current.
A single property still generates a service charge, a tenancy record and a valuation that moves. It just never justified a spreadsheet.
- Several properties
A portfolio, totalled.
Every unit in your name, pulled from the Land Department record and totalled in one place.
Value, income and service charges across every unit, so you can see the whole position without opening four folders.
- Before handover
Off-plan, on schedule.
Payment milestones and construction progress, with the resale value tracked before handover.
The developer tells you the construction percentage. Nobody tells you what the unit is worth on the secondary market today.
- Held from abroad
Owned here, lived elsewhere.
You are in London or Mumbai. Everything that needs doing is in Dubai.
Distance is the whole problem. The record is in Dubai, the invoices arrive in Dubai, and you are not.
What ownership in Dubai actually involves
Almost everything written about Dubai property is written for the purchase. The years afterwards are where the money is actually made or lost, and they are documented almost nowhere: the service charge that rises each year, the rent that can only be raised within a legal band, the valuation that moves whether or not you look at it.
All of it is on the record. Sales register with the Dubai Land Department, tenancies register through Ejari, and service charges are set per building through Mollak. The record is complete and public; it is simply not collected anywhere an owner can read it, which is the whole of the problem.
Three numbers decide whether a unit is working. Gross yield, which the rental yield calculator turns into a net. The service charge, which the service charge calculator prices per square foot and this guide explains. And the legal rent ceiling at renewal, set by Decree 43 and covered in Dubai rent increases.
If the answer is to exit, the cost of selling and the sell-or-hold framework set out the real net. If it is to hold, the real cost of owning is the annual ledger to budget against. Mulki is free for owners.