Reselling off-plan property in Dubai: how it works

These 36-month movements measure the capital gain already banked during construction — never to be confused with a rental yield. Over the same period, Jumeirah Garden City shows +72% and Dubai Silicon Oasis +77.7% (Bayut data). It is precisely this momentum that makes an assignment before completion attractive.

Your price then rests on three building blocks: the capital already paid (deposit + instalments paid), the market appreciation since your purchase, and the assignment premium you ask the incoming buyer to pay for taking over a position in a project whose price has risen.

A concrete benchmark: a development such as Mar Casa (Deyaar, Dubai Maritime City, completion December 2027) illustrates the kind of property still under construction that gets assigned in this market. For calculating the net capital gain, rely on our guide buy-and-flip strategies.

Step 3 — Find the buyer and sign the assignment agreement (assignment MOU)

The assignment is formalised through an assignment MOU signed between you and the incoming buyer, setting the price, the takeover of the payment plan and one central condition precedent: obtaining the developer's NOC.

Marketing usually goes through an agent. In the secondary market, the fee is 2% of the price + 5% VAT on the buyer's side (according to Property Finder), but off-plan assignments have their own commission practices — something to frame from the outset of the mandate.

Three points structure this step:

• The incoming buyer's deposit is held in escrow until the transfer, which secures the commitment of both parties.
• The incoming buyer's solvency must be verified: they will need to honour the remaining instalments of the payment plan, failing which the developer may initiate a deregistration.
• The condition precedent ties the sale to the developer's approval: if the NOC is refused, the MOU falls away.

This document differs from the MOU/Form F of an already completed property, which follows its own route: it is detailed in our guide reselling property in Dubai.

Step 4 — Obtain the developer's NOC, the keystone of the assignment

The developer's NOC (No Objection Certificate) is the document that formally authorises the change of buyer on the SPA — without it, no off-plan assignment can go through.

The request is submitted to the developer, who imposes several conditions before issuing the certificate:

• settle its NOC fees and administrative fees;
• clear any due instalment of the payment plan left unpaid;
• provide the SPA, proof of payment and passports of both parties.

In off-plan, the title remains provisional: at the Oqood stage, this is a registration in the interim register, before the final title deed is issued, which costs around AED 580 (according to Property Finder for DLD fees). It is a clear marker of the property's status at the time of assignment.

This control by the developer is not arbitrary: it stems from the RERA framework and the escrow mechanism, which make it responsible for properly financing the construction. We support every client on precisely this point — Lucretia manages the assignment and the NOC request from start to finish. How escrow works is detailed in our guide escrow accounts in Dubai.

Among my clients, the most common mistake is signing with an incoming buyer before writing to the developer: the NOC governs everything, and the delay it imposes always surprises those who underestimated it.

— Ralph BERTUCCI, Consultant Manager

Step 5 — Finalise the transfer at the DLD and pay the official fees

The transfer is finalised at the DLD, which registers the assignment and updates the Oqood in the name of the new buyer, legally securing the change of holder.

The transfer fee amounts to 4% of the sale price (Dubai Land Department), on top of which come fixed administrative fees. On an off-plan assignment, these 4% are, according to the DLD schedule, split equally between seller (2%) and buyer (2%).

On transaction taxes, VAT on residential property is 0% (Federal Tax Authority) and an individual pays no capital gains tax. Once the transfer is completed and the escrow reassigned to the incoming buyer, you collect the proceeds of the sale. The full breakdown of the budget is set out in our guide property purchase costs in Dubai.

Step 6 — Manage exit tax and the impact on the Golden Visa

The exit tax on an off-plan assignment is nil locally for an individual: 0% on capital gains and on income, with the 9% corporate tax above AED 375,000 in profit (Federal Tax Authority, since June 2023) targeting only structures — a case covered in our guide corporate tax in Dubai.

For a French tax resident, the 1989 treaty neutralises double taxation through a tax credit (BOFiP); the details are in our guides Dubai property taxation and rental income in Dubai.

Repatriating the proceeds is done by a traceable transfer, whose route is described in our guide paying for your Dubai property from Europe. One final point deserves attention: during the off-plan period, a registered will secures the transmission of assets for non-Muslims (DIFC Courts) — a subject not to be overlooked if your holding horizon extends.