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- Dubai 05:40 06:59 12:23 15:20 17:42 19:01
Companies cannot combine brokerage activity with evaluation in one office. (AFP)
Dubai-based real estate brokerage firms can undertake only one commercial activity under one licence, a senior government official said.
"Brokerage firms practicing evaluation and activities have one year to reorganise their business and choose one of the activities to operate in Dubai.
"Companies cannot combine brokerage activity with evaluation in one office," said Real Estate Regulatory Agency (Rera) CEO Marwan bin Ghalita.
He said companies that want to practice both brokerage and evaluation will have to set up another entity to conduct evaluation.
"The company will have to run its evaluation activities in a seperate office and the company will be headed by a different manager who will be a real estate evaluation professional," Ghalita told Emirates Business on the sidelines of the "The Second Arab Real Estate and Urban Development Conference" held at the Dubai Chamber of Commerce yesterday.
Rera estimates around 50 to 100 companies in Dubai are conducting evaluations.
Mohamad Khodr Al Dah, Head, Taqyeem Real Estate Appraisal Centre, Dubai Land Department, said: "Currently, there are 50 to 100 companies that are in one way or the other conducting evaluations.
"Once regulations for real estate evaluations start and we begin registering companies for evaluation activity, we will have a better idea of the numbers.
"At the moment we need to redefine the economic activity that is organised by the Dubai Economic Department (DED) and we are looking at creating a new economic activity, which is property evaluation."
He said: "We need to deal with conflict of interest and if a company's work as a broker is in conflict with its work as an evaluator then that needs to be rectified."
New rules for real estate professionals
Real estate evaluation professionals in Dubai will have to immediately start registering in the online system called Taqyeem set up by the Real Estate Appraisal Centre of the Dubai Land Department.
"Taqyeem system will register real estate-evaluators and their firms… eventually the system will be linked to the price index," said Rera CEO Marwan bin Ghalita.
Rera has also completed the final draft of UAE's "appraisal book".
"This is the book that all evaluators in Dubai will use as a guideline to do all their work. The guidelines will have all the information required to conduct evaluation. Some of the guidelines will ensure that all evaluators will be licenced by the Dubai Real Estate Evaluation Centre.
"Real estate appraisal is a critical issue for the real estate market. In Dubai, we will only allow professionals to do that," he added.
Some criteria set in the book said that people conducting evaluation activity should be "knowledgeable".
If it is an international company, then they should be a member of RICS or other international organisations in order to be registered in Dubai. Further, people will be required to pass a training course in order to qualify to be a real estate evaluation professional in Dubai.
"The test will be based on market rules and regulations," said Ghalita.
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