How to find reliable tenant in the UAE

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How to find reliable tenant in the UAE

13/12/2024

Good business conditions in the UAE attract a lot of businessmen. Experienced entrepreneurs, as well as young ones, choose this land to grow their business. But every business needs a place! So why not surrender your land to some responsible entrepreneur and make it profitable?

And as soon as landowner decides to lease the facility, one of the important issues will be how to find a good tenant? How to find a person who'll take care of the property? How to avoid frauds? And finally how to find a lessee worth to cooperate with for a long time?

So here are some essential tips to help to find a great tenant for your property!

Follow the Law

First thing first, it is necessary to familiarize with those laws, which will result in the rental of property. Fortunately, the rental laws in Dubai are not rocket science. The Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) has combined all the necessary information into one document. It's the Law No. 26 of 2007. The full text of it can be found on www.dubailand.gov.ae It worth mentioning, that not every property for rent is the subject of the Law. For example, it's not applicable to hotels, free accommodation provided by judicial or natural persons to their employees.

In sum, the Law contains 37 articles:

In 4th article you can find information about tenancy contract and what it contains. However, the EJARI system is an important part of the rental agreement regulation too. Tenants and landlords must undergo the EJARI registration and get the Certificate. Only after this landlord can lease his property and tenant can rent it. In addition, the right type of tenancy contract is also can be found on the official EJARI website.
Articles from 5th to 8th of the Law contain information about period of tenancy and rental contract renewing. Note, that due and valid tenancy contract can't be unilaterally terminated by the only one party. This case requires prior notice sending.
Articles from 9th to 14th are about rent value and it's increasing. Rent value can be increased without prior notification too. Furthermore, it can't be raised while other similar properties in the same area haven't done this. It can be verified with RERA Rental Increase Calculator.
Obligations of landlord are in articles from 15th to 18th, of tenant – in articles from 19th to 24th.
The following 25th and 26th articles contains information about tenant's eviction. In some cases, landlord has the right to demand lessee eviction upon the rental contract expires.
And the last articles contains general rules and final judgments. The last is about disputable issues and reasons to go to the court.

As you can see, this information is really important and must be known for doing business in real estate renting. But however, the Law doesn't give an answer on how to find good tenants for rental property. It is completely a concern of landowner or property management company. But also it means that landlord is free to choose the search method! And one of the most common and effective methods for tenant finding is advertising!

Advertise in leasing business

Right advertising is actually an art. A properly crafted ads will work for you, saving your time and nerves. For choosing the right place for ads it's necessary to know who might be the perfect tenant? Is it a single man looking for a small comfortable apartment? Or a family looking for a big house? Or your property is commercial, for example, it's a storage? Think about which type of tenant you need to attract. Otherwise you can lose a lot of money because of wrong placed ads.

After determining what type of tenant you are looking for, it's time to choose the right place for ads. There are a number of UAE websites offering advertising services. And only landlord himself chooses which one is best for him. There will be just several advices how to choose it wisely.

The main difference between all of them is the cost of advertising. Some websites offer it for free while others require a fee. Each businessman decides how much should he pay for advertising according to his budget. But remember that free websites are far more vulnerable. And frauds can hack and change the contact details in ads to trick potential tenant. While paid websites take a lot of care of their security.

Another effective and proven way is using Google ads. This powerful tool can help to find good tenant in the UAE too. Landowner can set up it to show his ads to exactly right audience. In addition, chance to be tricked is very small.

However, even the best place for advertise won't be effective if ads in not attractive itself. Good tenant actually looks for responsible landlord. Poor lit, blurry photos, as well as photos of poor-maintained and dirty rooms, aren't attractive, indeed. So it's better to look at some competitors photos before. It helps to understand which of them looks great and why. But don't forget to pay attention to bad ones. It helps to see how not to shoot a property.

Tenant interview and property showing

As soon as key-words are placed in an ads, property features and benefits are described, and photos looks great and attractive, it's time to wait for responses. But no matter how many time could pass, do not forget to keep the real estate clean. It must be ready to be shown even before ads goes!

After some time, potential tenants begin to respond. Keep calm and remember: it's not a bad character trait for landlord to be picky. Treat each of them equally. And there is a scheme how to do it.

How to check potential lessee

A potential tenant background check can help landlord to save time and immediately weed out unsuitable candidates. In general, it includes:

Credit history check

It's about tenant's place of work, income, debts and so on. Also, the landlord is able to connect with tenant's employer and verify the information. If potential tenant is a business owner, the information about his company, it's website and social media pages can be checked. As for income, it is better to exceeds the rent three times.

Rental history check

It's about former landlords and previous rent experience. Landowner can connect with former landlords and ask about tenant. If he paid rent and bills timely, keep the apartment clean, had issues with neighbors, damaged the property?

Criminal background check

The Dubai Police Department can give an information about it to the landlord. However, when registering a UAE visa, information about criminal incidents of potential lessee is taken into account. And also tenant may has the Good Conduct Certificate, that includes this information too. People with serious problems with the law just can not apply for the visa.

In sum, there are a short but substantive list of questions to ask from a prospective tenant:

where is the work, the position;
if he is a business owner, what type of business is it;
if he is looking for rent a property for business needs, ask more about the business to make sure this wont cause any damage to your property;
ask about income and debts, be very attentive and don't forget to verify this information;
previous rental history, why did he leave the previous place of rent and how often he moves on in general. And if he does it often, what is the reason. Stable tenant is much more better than one who moves on every month.
relations with neighbors on the previous place of rent;
future plans.

While communicating with the prospective tenant, it is possible to decide whether he worth to occupy your property or not. If you are new to the rental business, be double attentive. Often frauds look for an inexperienced landowner. After all of this checks, it's time to show your property and conclude the lease contract.

All in all, you can see how crucial this process is. But remember that once you have found a reliable tenant, you no longer have to worry about your property. Following this advices can help you to make the process of tenant finding easier and clear. But you shouldn't do it halfway, otherwise, it would cost you a lot!

However, landlord always can delegate finding of a tenant to a property management company in Dubai. And for a fee, the company will take care of all the complexities of this process. Advertising, credit, rental and criminal background checking, potential tenant interviewing and etc. Remember that your time is also a valuable resource. So the help of an experienced company will actually save your money and time as well!