Rent Committee (the 2nd)

Marmotte's Blog

Thursday, June 21. 2007

Posted by Marmotte in Dubai

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Rent Committee (the 2nd)

Yesterday we had our hearing in front of the rent committee.

Our hearing time was set a 17:00, but we had to wait until 20:30 until our turn was up. (yesterday were about 80 cases scheduled, with two committees presiding on two floors. On our floor there were around 44 cases and we were case number 40!)

Even though at the beginning everything was a bit of a mess (all the infos about the cases were only written in Arabic), there were some helpful employees around, which were happy to translate and guide the way.

So at 20:30, we were finally called in front of the rent committee to state our case. Present in the conference room, were about seven rent committee members, our landlord, his son, Seb and I.

They started to question the landlord right away (to bad it was again in Arabic and we didn't understand much), but it was right away clear, that they were pretty hard on him. After three minutes of grilling the landlord :o) , the speaker of the rent committee turned to Seb and asked him, if this was our first year in the villa, and after Seb agreed, he already announced the verdict.

THE VERDICT:
the landlord has to renew the contract to the same conditions as last year (not even a 7% raise was granted!) and he will also have to reimburse us the cost of the hearing.
The written verdict will be available for pick-up within 15 days of the hearing at the Dubai Municipality.

I guess we were as shocked as the landlord, as we didn't expect the hearing to be over in 3 minutes, and without even having to explain our point of view. That was just wonderful!

Especially we were so pleased about the come out, since we were told by a lawyer here in Dubai (of course before heading to the rent committee we were trying to find out, what our chances would be to win the case), that we didn't have much chances, as our contract was limited to one year and the renewal up to our landlord. We even had already started to look around for a new place after this answer and only because a real estate agent, who was showing us some villas told us we should definitely go to the rent committee, we did go.

Let me tell you this. If you have problems with your landlord (his trying to raise the rent more than 7%, he is trying to evict you, he doesn't want to return your safety deposit check, etc.) just go to the rent committee and file a complaint. Don't listen to any advise a lawyer gives you! The rent committee is really on the side of the renter and yesterday we saw a lot of happy faces leaving the meeting room!

Just be aware, that it will take you some of your free time, a lot of patience and you will have to advance the money for the hearing..,,,,.but hey.... if you do win in the end, I can tell you, it just feels GREEAAATTTT!

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Congrats

You must feel relieved !

#1 Frederic Casagrande (Homepage) on 2007-06-25 01:10 (Reply)

oh yes we are! Also, now instead of moving we can fly home and visit family. :o)))

#1.1 Marmotte on 2007-06-25 09:53 (Reply)

Félicitations Seb + Vesna!!!

Nous sommes très content pour vous deux (pardon....vous trois.....)!

Nous vous attendons avec plasir en Suisse.

A bientôt Monica et Alain

#2 monica on 2007-06-27 18:46 (Reply)

Hi, I was reading about your case and was wondering if you could help me by answering some questions. My flat has been sold and my new landlord claims he wants to move in, although he bought 5 other flats in the same building. I wanted to go to the rent commitee but I'm worried because he's a local and secondly I can't prove that he bough other flats. Any advice? Will he have an advantage in the rent committee? thanks,

#3 tanya on 2007-07-11 16:43 (Reply)

Hello Tanya
We were very unsecured about going to the rent committee as well, as the contacted lawyer saw no chance in our case. But we still won!
Also other people which we met on the day of the hearing, won their cases no matter if their landlord was a local or not. I would say, that the rent committee is aware of all the abuses going on and it judges in the favor of the renter.

Maybe just "threatening" your landlord about going to the rent committee will help in your case, as I heard, that landlords (if they win their case in front of the rent committee) won't be able to rent their places for a few years. (and I'm sure he wouldn't want to loose money!)

I would advice you to fight back and try your best, as the more people do and the more cases get won by renter at the rent committee, landlords will more likely stop trying to screw us!

Good luck with whatever decision you take!!!

#3.1 Marmotte on 2007-07-15 13:03 (Reply)

Where did you start as we are now thinking of going to the committee. Any advise is very welcome. Dawn

#4 Dawn on 2008-06-30 12:56 (Reply)

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