Sparkle Towers

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A press release went out on Business Wire yesterday announcing 'Sparkle Towers', the 'first ever crystal inspired residential haven'.

The developer is a company called Tebyan. In the release, its managing director, a Mr Naji Alia, says: 'Dubai is known worldwide as a haven of luxury where simply having a ‘good’ residence is just not good enough. Our style-sensitive residents seek nothing but the very best, and elegance is not only appreciated but demanded.'

The towers (one is G+29 and one G+14) are to be 'branded "space marveled by Swarovski', which would appear to mean that the interiors and a number of as yet unspecified architectural and interior features will be based around Swarovski crystal and glass products, or solutions as the release tells us they are known.

As Mr Alia says, 'To enhance Dubai’s global reputation, Tebyan has gone beyond luxury to perfection.'

A chap from Swarovski said the towers would be a 'beyond luxury living experience' and also pointed out Swarovski was delighted to be able to 'experience the joy of crystal through diverse sparkling applications.'

Tebyan says the Sparkle Towers is 'glorious in all the details'. The company's 'aggressive growth vision' makes it 'eager to break barriers of doubt'.

I am too exhausted to do more than present you with the facts.

Who Moved My Shiny?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Oi! You! Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm moving in to my new place. I've got a Shiny, I have!"
"Not without a moving in/moving out form you haven't! Where is it?"
"I haven't got 'it' whatever 'it' is!"
"Well then, you can't move in, can you? If you haven't got a moving in/moving out form, duly completed and submitted five days before you move, you can't move. It's quite clear."
"What's quite clear? Nobody told me about this!"
"It's in black and white, in the regulations. Duly available to any member of the public who presents himself to the regulation archive and requests a copy."
"Where's the regulation archive?"
"We don't know. We lost it. We'd have put it in The Archive, but we're turning that into a shopping mall. Anyway, that's beside the point. No moving in/moving out form, no move."
"But this is mine. I bought it. Freehold."
"Usufruct."
"I'm sorry?"
"Usufruct. Not freehold. That's in the regulations, too. Which gives us the right to insist on you completing a moving in/moving out form before you move in. And tell you what colour you can paint your Shiny and all the other stuff we get up to when we conjure up daft new schemes and ideas."
"In the advert, it didn't say 'Dare to dream, live to love, enjoy a scintillating lifestyle in paradisical sunshine by the way it's usufruct so you can't even move in without filling in some arbitrary form to pander to some odious jobsworth who couldn't even organise a shawarma stand."
"Okay, that's it, mate. You can't say shawarma to me like that. I'm only doing my job and I won't have random strangers throwing obscenities at me. I'm calling the law, I am."
"What about this lorry and all my stuff?"
"Take 'em back. You'll not need 'em for a while anyway once the law get hold of you. Your feet aren't going to touch the floor. 'Hello, police? I'd like to lodge a complaint against someone who just said 'shawarma' to me. I know, I know. I am indeed grievously insulted. Right away. Thank you, officer.' Right, mate, I'll give you shawarma, so'n I will."
"Have you seriously just called the police and complained I said 'shawarma' to you?"
"You can pick up a copy of the moving in/moving out form on your way down to the nick or you can fill in the online form and print that out to submit an application for the moving in/moving out form at the same office. You can suit yourself, I've had enough of standing around being insulted by the likes of you. Good day to you."

In case the above doesn't make much sense this link to the moving/in moving out form story might help and this one to the shawarma insult story may shed further light in the gloom. 

Rent Hike Pain. We Are SO Back, Baby

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today's The National reports on a 50% increase in Dubai landlord/tenant cases going to law on the back of rental increases that have topped as much as 40% year on year.

Sure enough, the news that we're back in the property-flipping, mega-development real estate boomtastic jetstream has filtered down to landlords, who have had to deal with a good five lean years as Dubai's over-heated 2008 rental prices dropped like a stone circling a black hole, resulting in a market awash with a glut of unwanted housing.

Nowadays, we're looking at undersupply of rental property - I've come across several people who've actually found it hard to find a flat, particularly at reasonable prices. And the news that we're back has prompted landlords to take the fast boat to rent increase paradise and just evict their current tenants at the end of their one-year contract.

Except you can't do that anymore - there's a pesky property law in place now and what's more it's actually being enforced. Dubai's got a sparkly new property tribunal which means wronged tenants (and, yes, wronged landlords) can take their case to law quickly and get a settlement - and in the meantime property regulator RERA hears cases.

That law has two fascinating clauses. The first relates to the RERA rental calculator, a basket of average prices which is used to calculate permissible increases in rent for landlords, the 'average similar rent'.

Decree No. 2 of 2011 on rentals in Dubai states that increases in rent are allowed as follows:

Up to 25% below the average similar rent = no increase. 26-35% = 5% maximum increase. 36-45% = 10% increase. 46-54% = 15% increase and 55% less than the average similar rent = 20% maximum increase.

In other words, even if your property rental price is less than half the RERA calculated market average (which is itself often less than market 'asking prices'), your landlord can only increase the rental by 20%

Ah, but he can just chuck you out at the end of your rental in any case. Well, actually, no he can't.

Dubai's property law states a landlord must give a tenant 12 months' notice to vacate a property AND have good reason to do so. The usual canard is that he's moving himself or his family back in. Fine, but the law actually states he has to prove he has no suitable other property for this purpose AND if he does re-let the property, the original tenant is due compensation.

So there's actually pretty comprehensive protection in place for tenants - and it seems more and more are actually taking to seeking recourse. You'd have thought landlords would be aware of the law and take care to work within this very clear framework, but the lure of those rental increases appears to be a strong one and they're trying it on.

They're much less likely to do so when people are clearly aware of the law and their rights within it, of course.