It is an obligation, not a bill you can argue with later
Under Dubai Law No. 6 of 2019 on the ownership of jointly owned properties, an owner is obliged to pay service charges to the management entity. This is worth stating plainly because it is the part buyers most often treat as soft. It is not a subscription you can opt out of in a weak rental year; it continues for as long as you own the unit, whether or not the property is let.
A dating check for any advice you read. Law No. 6 of 2019 repealed the earlier Law No. 27 of 2007. A surprising amount of guidance still online cites the 2007 law as current. If an article you are reading does, treat everything else in it with the same caution — it has not been reviewed since at least 2019.
Find your project's approved figure — the part almost nobody does
RERA approves service fees for jointly owned properties, and Dubai Land Department makes them queryable through the Service Charge Index. This matters more than it sounds: it means you do not have to accept a number quoted by a seller, an agent or a listing. You can check the approved one for the exact building, before you commit.
| Step | What you do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Open the Service Charge Index — via the DLD website, the Mollak system, or the Dubai REST app |
| 2 | Select the service, then choose the project name |
| 3 | Select the property use and the year |
| 4 | The approved figure is returned immediately — that is your number, not the quoted one |
Procedure verified 9 September 2026 against the DLD service pages linked in the sources block below.
Do this before you sign, not after handover. The service charge is one of the few forward costs in an off-plan purchase you can research honestly at the point of decision. On a completed or near-complete building the history is there to look at. For a project years from handover there may be no approved figure yet — which is itself information, and the reason to look at the developer's comparable buildings instead.
Put the real number into the return — gross to net, honestly
A service charge does not reduce your yield in some vague way; it moves one specific number. Gross yield ignores it. Net yield subtracts it. The gap between those two figures is the gap between the marketing and your bank account.
- Gross yield = annual rent ÷ property value. Useful only for a first-pass comparison between buildings.
- Net yield = (annual rent − service charge − vacancy allowance − maintenance − management − any other recurring cost) ÷ property value. This is the number you actually live on.
- Do the subtraction with your looked-up figure, not an assumed one. Take the approved annual charge for your unit from the index, subtract it from your realistic annual rent, and only then divide.
The order matters more than people expect. Two units can carry an identical gross yield and a materially different net one purely because of what their buildings cost to run — and the difference compounds for every year you hold. The full method, including how payment-plan timing changes the denominator, is set out in the ROI guide; the one-off purchase costs that belong in your capital are itemised in the cost of buying breakdown. You can run the arithmetic yourself in the ROI calculator.
What the figure tells you about the building itself
Treat the service charge as a diagnostic, not just a deduction. The system around it is unusually transparent, and that transparency is useful to an investor who bothers to read it.
- The accounts are governed. Mollak enforces regulatory governance on property management companies registered with RERA, requiring them to upload financial statements and copies of maintenance, service and other supplier contracts.
- The money is ring-fenced. Mollak monitors service charge accounts relying on financial accounts operating according to the mechanism of the escrow account.
- You are billed quarterly. RERA issues electronic service charge approvals through Mollak, and owners receive quarterly service charge invoices through the system.
The judgement, which is mine rather than the regulator's: an unusually low charge for a building with extensive facilities is not automatically good news. Pools, gyms, concierge, lifts and landscaping cost what they cost. A figure that looks too light can mean deferred maintenance, and deferred maintenance eventually arrives as a larger charge, a special levy, or a building that shows its age faster than its neighbours — all of which land on the owner. I would rather see a well-run building with an honest charge than a cheap one storing up a problem for the year I want to sell.
How this changes what you buy
Once the charge is a real number rather than an afterthought, it starts doing useful work in the decision:
- It ranks buildings that look identical on price. Two units at the same price per square foot in the same area can deliver different net returns for a decade purely on running cost.
- It exposes amenity you are paying for and will not use. Facilities are charged to every owner whether or not that owner values them. For a purely investment purchase, amenity you are funding but your tenant will not pay a premium for is a permanent drag.
- It affects your exit, not just your income. A buyer three years from now will run this same check — and by then the building will have a track record on the index that you do not control.
Last verified 9 September 2026 against the official pages: Dubai Land Department — Service Charge Index · Mollak — about the system. The legal obligation to pay service charges sits in Dubai Law No. 6 of 2019 on the ownership of jointly owned properties, which repealed Law No. 27 of 2007. Facts on this page are the authorities' published position at that date; anything framed as judgement is my opinion as an investor and advisor, not legal or financial advice. This page deliberately quotes no market-wide service charge range: figures circulating in commercial articles are not an official source, and the only number that matters for your decision is the approved one for your project. Rules and rates change — verify at source before acting.