Page 2 of 3. Older field notes on how renting works across the Arab world, written for the people who manage it.
Three different things get called eviction, and they run on different clocks. What separates non-renewal from termination from enforcement, why the notice is usually the whole case, and the dates a system should be counting backwards from.
The UAE largely decriminalised insufficient-funds cheques in January 2022 and made the cheque itself directly enforceable. That changed the first move from a police station to an execution court — and changed what a property manager needs to have on file.
Most deposit disputes are not arguments about the law. They are arguments about evidence that nobody collected. What a deduction has to be able to show, and why the deposit belongs on the balance sheet rather than in the income account.
In Dubai the permitted increase is a function of how far below market the current rent sits, and the notice period is ninety days whatever the number turns out to be. The mechanics, the notice, and why most refused increases are refused on procedure rather than on amount.
Most property software is built for markets where rent arrives monthly by direct debit. The questions that separate a system that fits this region from one that has been translated — and the ones worth asking in any demo, including ours.
Annual rent settled in four cheques handed over at signing is the norm from Casablanca to Muscat — and the reason most property software does not fit. What a PDC register has to track, and what happens when one bounces.