Foreigners’ Real Estate Property in United Arab Emirates Comparative study

Abstract

Real estate property is one of the main forms of property, that mankind enjoy and keen to have it, not currently but from the distant past, till Tomorrow and the far future. Thus legislations all over the world respect and consider it as a right for the man to own a property and have the powers to use, exploit and assign or transfer it.

Right to own property, had been organized in national legislations; that draw its scope and limitations, which determine the powers of the owner and his obligations towards his property, and also with others in relation to its property. One of the main limitations in interesting real property rights is the differentiation between nationals and foreigners, that in most cases the scope of ownership for the national is wider than the foreigner; sometimes it is prohibited for the later. This scope or limitations may be broadened or narrowed, varies from country to other according to elements as policy, ideology, and sometimes economically circumstances.

The situation in UAE is worthy consideration to study, because of the federal formation of the country, the Emirati constitution reserves the principal issues, which represent the main pillars of the country, to be organized under the federal level and leave some issues to be organized under the local authorities, the entire seven emirates, which form the Emirati union, considered the real estate sector is one of these issues. Consequently, there are variations in organizing this sector in the seven emirates; each emirate has its unique local law that differs from other local laws in the country.

Herein our study concerns by similarities and differences in these local laws, which deals with the foreigner real estate property rights in UAE, in order to reach a common line or trend for these local legislations that may be a nucleus for a federal law to organize foreigner rights in real estate property, especially real estate sector is considered, as one of the main economic sectors which had been flourished, in the last few years and attract seekers and investors from all over the world.

The study relies on the comparative method on two levels; the first level is the local level in order to reach the similarities and contradictions between the seven local legislations in the country. While the second level is the international level, to clarify the experiences of other countries especially liberal countries, which open the real estate market to foreigners to own and invest in this economic sector.