Dubai’s real estate rental online registration system Ejari is now “fully integrated” with a direct debit system (DDS). The Dubai Land Department (DLD) had announced last year that the UAE Central Bank’s DDS eliminates the need for tenants to submit post-dated rental cheques. The new system allows tenants and landlords to configure the rent payment schedule during the contract creation or renewal process. This will facilitate recurrent payments from the tenants’ bank accounts, according to a manual issued by the DLD earlier this week. This means instead of cheques, the landlord may collect signed direct debit mandates from tenants.
“The UAEDDS … provides the residents of UAE with an automated payment method that will facilitate recurrent payments from their bank accounts,” the DLD said in the manual that lists the steps needed to set up a DDS in Ejari and digital wallet noqodi.
The DDS allows tenants to sign an authorisation form for instalment payments. “It is mainly a product to replace cheques and automate the debit from bank account,” the DLD said in the manual.
The DDS benefits tenants, landlords and property management companies.
In the event of payment failure, Noqodi will make three retry attempts, the manual states. If the payment doesn’t happen, the tenant will be contacted. If it still does not happen, “legal action” will be taken.
Real estate firms could also levy fines on the tenant.
The DLD manual states that ‘stop payments’ will not incur any charges. Dates of payment cannot be amended currently, but the facility will be made available in phase two.
Though rare, a direct debit payment system to pay rents has been around in Dubai for nearly four years. Residents of multiple communities in Dubai have been paying rents cheque-free since 2019.
Real estate experts said the Ejari-DDS link could be the “beginning of the phasing out of physical cheque payments”.
