CRESCO RESEARCH
Ten checks you can run from the United States before you send a dirham. Every one of them comes from a published Dubai Land Department rule, not from our opinion of ourselves.
Every property advertisement in Dubai must carry a permit number issued through the Land Department's Trakheesi system. Since 24 April 2023 it must also carry a QR code. Scan that code and it opens the Land Department's own record of the advertisement. It shows which company is advertising and whether the property has already been sold or rented. The check takes five seconds and almost no American buyer knows it exists.
The Land Department enforces the rule. In an announcement dated 20 October 2020 it fined ten real estate companies and warned another thirty for advertising without a permit, manipulating permit numbers or using expired permits. Fines started at AED 50,000 and escalated. The Department said the process "may reach the stage of cancelling the licence" of a violating company.
What follows is ten checks you can run on any Dubai brokerage before you send money. Each one comes from a published Dubai Land Department rule or service, linked beside it. None of them requires you to be in Dubai. We are a Dubai brokerage and we expect you to run all ten on us.
| Check | What it establishes | Official source |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Validate the ORN and BRN | The firm and the agent are licensed | DLD Verify License and Permits |
| 2. Scan the advertisement QR code | The listing is real and still available | DLD Madmoun service |
| 3. Find the permit number on the ad | The advertisement is permitted | DLD advertising rules |
| 4. Get the right RERA form | Your instructions are on the record | DLD Brokerage Practice Guide |
| 5. Ask for the escrow agent's name | The project has a real escrow account | DLD Know Your Rights |
| 6. Pay only into project escrow | Your money is ring fenced by law | Law No. 8 of 2007 |
| 7. Fix the registration date | The 60 day clock is handled | DLD Know Your Rights |
| 8. Settle the 4 per cent split | You know what you are paying | DLD Know Your Rights |
| 9. Confirm off plan registration | Your interest is not void | DLD Know Your Rights |
| 10. Question an unsolicited call | How the firm treats the rulebook | DLD Brokerage Practice Guide |
A brokerage holds an Office Registration Number. An individual agent holds a Broker Registration Number printed on a practice card. The Land Department runs a service called Verify License and Permits, which checks the electronic copy of licences and permits issued through Trakheesi for every real estate practitioner in Dubai. It runs on the Land Department website and in the Dubai REST app, and the Department lists the service time as immediate.
Ask for both numbers in writing before you look anything up. A broker who will not put an ORN in an email has told you something useful.
The service is called Madmoun. The Land Department issues a QR code for every real estate advertisement permit and required companies to display it on print and audiovisual advertising from 24 April 2023. Scanning it links through to the Department's website and shows the advertisement in full, including the advertising company and the property's condition and specifications. It also tells you whether the property has already been sold or rented.
That last point matters more than it sounds. A listing that is still being advertised after the unit has gone is how a lot of first conversations start.
Brokers must obtain a permit for any real estate advertisement or marketing material through the Trakheesi system, and the permit number must be displayed on the advertisement. The Land Department's position is blunt. It stated that "the advertiser will bear the consequences of the legal procedures if the permit number is not placed in the advertisement."
A listing with no permit number is not a listing you should be acting on, however good the photographs are.
Dubai brokers are required to use the Land Department's standard contracts for marketing and sales. Form A covers the seller and the brokerage. Form B covers the buyer and the broker. Form F is the sale contract between seller and buyer. If a broker is acting for you and there is no Form B, there is no written record of what you agreed about scope or fees.
These are not awkward questions. They are the questions the Land Department's own investor guide tells you to ask. It lists them plainly among the checks before buying: "What is the escrow account number and the name of the escrow account agent?" Put them to the developer directly and not only through the broker.
We do not publish escrow account numbers for any project and neither should anybody else. The number is for you to obtain from the developer and verify, not to read off a website.
The Land Department's brokerage guidance states that buyers must be instructed to deposit amounts only into the escrow accounts of their respective properties. Law No. 8 of 2007 sits behind that. Article 9 provides that the account is dedicated exclusively to the construction of that project. Article 14 requires the escrow agent to retain five per cent of the total value of the account after the completion certificate is obtained.
A broker who offers you a different account to pay into is not offering you a shortcut. The ring fence is the protection, and paying around it removes it.
The Land Department's investor guide states that real estate transactions must be registered within sixty days from the date of signature of the sale and purchase contract, and that a fine applies if that is missed. Ask your broker in writing who files the registration and on what date.
The sixty days runs from signature. It does not run from when the paperwork is convenient.
Sale registration fees are four per cent of the purchase price. The Land Department's investor guide says this is "usually split equally between buyer and seller." Many American buyers are told they pay the whole four per cent.
That may well be what is negotiated on a given deal. It is a negotiation and not a rule, and the official position is worth knowing before you open it. Get the split in writing either way.
Off plan sales must be registered. The Land Department's guide is explicit that unregistered off plan disposals "would be considered null and void." Ask which register the sale lands on and ask to see the confirmation once it does.
A signed contract and a payment receipt are not the same thing as a registered interest. We set out the project side of this in our guide to verifying a Dubai developer.
Dubai brokers are not allowed to contact owners who are not registered as part of the green list. If you already own in Dubai and a brokerage cold calls you about selling it, that call may itself sit outside the rules.
It tells you how a firm treats the rulebook before you have given them anything at all.
These ten checks establish that a firm is licensed and that a process is being followed. They do not tell you a price is fair. They do not tell you a tower will complete on schedule. They do not make a project a good investment. A fully licensed broker can still sell you something you should not buy.
Dubai law gives you some protection after the fact. Developers are liable for structural defects for ten years and for minor defects for one year. Jointly owned property comes with an owners association and annual service charges. When you resell you will need a No Objection Certificate confirming those charges are paid, and the developer may charge AED 500 for it.
Verifying the broker is also not the same as verifying the developer or the project. Those are separate checks and we keep them on a separate page.
Every rule above was read from a Dubai Land Department or Dubai Government published source on 24 October 2026 and linked beside the claim it supports. The sources are the DLD Verify License and Permits service page, the Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide, the investor guide Know Your Rights, the Madmoun announcement of 18 April 2023, the enforcement announcement of 20 October 2020, and Law No. 8 of 2007 on the Dubai Legislation portal.
The fine figures come from the 2020 announcement. Penalty schedules change. Treat AED 50,000 as the starting point announced then and not as a confirmed current schedule.
The Verify License and Permits service requires a login. We did not run a live lookup for this article, so we describe what the Department says the service does rather than what a particular query returned on the day.
We have not reproduced the Land Department's broker register on this page and we do not intend to. Run the lookup yourself against the firm in front of you.
We do not rank brokerages here and we publish no client testimonials. The ten checks apply to every firm licensed in Dubai, ours included.
This is general information about published rules. It is not legal advice and it is not tax advice. Rules change. Confirm the current position with the Dubai Land Department or a qualified Dubai lawyer before you act.
An Office Registration Number identifies the brokerage firm. A Broker Registration Number identifies the individual agent and appears on that agent's practice card. You want both, because a licensed firm can still send you an agent who is not registered.
No. RERA is the Real Estate Regulatory Agency within the Dubai Land Department. A RERA registration establishes that a firm is licensed to broker property in Dubai. It says nothing at all about any licence in any American state, and the two are not equivalent or interchangeable.
Yes, in the designated freehold areas. We cover the detail in can Americans buy property in Dubai and in our guide to buying from the United States.
Not necessarily. A properly drawn power of attorney can cover the signing, and we set out how that works in buying Dubai property from the USA by power of attorney.
Through the banking system and into the project escrow account, never through a broker's own account. Our guide to transferring money from the USA to Dubai covers the mechanics and the reporting.
Cresco Real Estate is licensed in Dubai under ORN 34288. Umer Shauket, our chief executive, holds BRN 59655. We work from a Dubai office and a United States office at 1800 N Vine St Suite 346, Los Angeles CA 90028. If you want to see what our own answers look like, start with is Cresco Real Estate legit, then run all ten checks above on us before you talk to us.
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Price is only part of what you need in the bank. We worked out the full cash requirement, including the Land Department transfer fee, the service partner fee and the Central Bank deposit caps, in how much money you need to buy property in Dubai.