A leading property industry group has called for fairness in dealing with hundreds of cancellation notices sent out to home buyers who have defaulted on payments.
Martin Seward-Case, the chairman of the UAE chapter of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said that if buyers were not able to obtain mortgages or financing because the developer was significantly late with delivering a building, they should not be held accountable for payments.
"In isolation this doesn't seem fair and reasonable on the part of the developers," Mr Seward-Case said. "The landscape will have changed entirely with respect to gaining access to finance ? and if it can be shown that finance would have indeed been available should the purchase not have been significantly late ? then indeed it does not seem fair that the purchaser should be penalised for this."
He added that buyers also should not be able to walk away from their obligations.
Developers have sent out "several hundred" cancellation notices to buyers who are behind with their payments, according to the Dubai Land Department, the regulator that oversees the cancellations. These include properties from Omniyat Properties, Deyaar Development, Al Fajer Real Estate and Emaar Properties. Some buyers who have received notices claim they would not have defaulted if the building was finished on time more than a year ago, when banks were still lending.
Once a cancellation notice is sent out, a buyer has the right to explain why they have not made payments on their unit. The Land Department has set out several reasons why buyers can stop paying and not be liable to cancellation, such as developers delaying obtaining approvals to start construction without "good reason" and failing to register the project with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency, according to the law firm Al Tamimi and Company.
If a contract is cancelled, the developer can then sell the homes in an auction administered by the Land Department.
The law sets out a sliding scale of refunds for buyers who default. For instance, if a developer has completed more than 80 per cent of a building and the buyer defaults, it can keep only 40 per cent of the property's value. However, in some cases this may include all the money paid by the investor.
Ludmila Yamalova, a lawyer with Al Sayyah Advocates and Legal Consultants, said there were still legal issues to be resolved by the cancellations.
"In my view, the Land Department doesn't have the power to enforce a cancellation," said Ms Yamalova, who represents several buyers who have received cancellation notices. "The court has to issue an order to allow an auction to go through."
She said many buyers were willing to negotiate with developers, but they wanted a deal that could include lowering prices and allowing them to consolidate multiple units into one property.
Mr Seward-Case said the concept of "unjust enrichment" should play a role in these disputes, so that neither side could benefit from the other's misfortune.
"This principle is supported by the UAE Federal Law in a variety of codes that ultimately protect fairness," he said. "Here this could be applied to the developer 'gaining an advantage' by the purchaser not being able to secure finance due to the later credit restrictions imposed by the banks since the financial crises - clearly a condition outside of the purchaser's control."
Mohammed Sultan Thani, the assistant director general of the Land Department, said last week that no properties had yet been put up for auction but that hundreds of letters had been sent out.
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Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
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Starring: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shantanu Maheshwari, Jimmy Shergill, Saiee Manjrekar
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▶ Lumi Black lemon ice cream, pistachio, pomegranate
▶ Black chocolate bar Dark chocolate, dates, caramel, camel milk ice cream
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Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.