mission

I wanted to make you guys aware of what has happened to my colleague this week.
On Monday after work he went home and found a notice on hisapartment with the locks changed and so him and his fiancé couldn’t get intotheir apartment. All day yesterday and today he has been in court to try andget access to the apartment. Him and his fiancé have had stay in a hotel.
Basically the landlord has done a runner (had a mortgage on the property), thereal estate agent to whom the lease, deposit and commission payments were made to has been dissolved (the company no longer exists).The courts have handed the apartment over to the bank.
The courts will not give my colleagueaccess to the apartment to even collect all their belongings - theyleased the apartment (2 bed) unfurnished and hence furnished it out.
RERA can’t do shyte other than advise my colleague to open up a court casewhich will literally take months and money.
Just goes to illustrate how horrible things can turnfor the worse out here (in matter of a day) through no fault of your own and with no recourse.

DXBtoDOH

I really, really, hope there's no pets involved

Millhouse

hope they are married.

Bahtatboy

I think the clue's in the word "fiancé". As you subtly imply, they could be in court again pretty soon. From bad to apocalyptic in a short space of time.

scrubbedexpat141

Poor people. Nightmare. I hate this place sometimes.

mission

vaild point....luckily they have no pets

mission

latest is - they still have not been able to get access to the apartment.
They are going through the various appeal steps to try and get access so that they can at least get their belongings.
It all seems to hinge on whatever mood the judge is in when he went to court this morning he was told 'best not to disturb the judge right now coz he is in a bad mood'
The landlord apparently left the country way back in 2011 (as per immigration) - he was an arab brit and no one can track him down.

Irishbeekeeper

Maybe I dont know much about these things but why go to all the trouble of attracting attention in a moody court of law? Which bank was it? If its been given back to the bank then someone in the bank has those keys to the new locks.
Surely he can just go talk to the bank and find out who that person is and ask them to send someone along with the keys to open it for him for a few hours. A bit of charm and a bit of under the table 'gift' works wonders here.

mission

unfortunately not as straight forward as that.
This all kicked off last Wednesday and having made numerous visits to the court house since last Thursday, endless supplies of documents/papers/letters etc....finally, today, the judge ruled and said my colleague has 2 days to collect all their things from the apartment. A bank official will escort them in and out of the apartment to remove their belongings. The apartment has been handed over to the bank and the bank has it on sale for AED 1.8m.

DXBtoDOH

I have picked up enough from others that usually if a property is foreclosed, the repossessing bank has to honour the existing contract in place. Likewise if they evict the tenant they have to serve him with a proper notification 12 months in advance. The change in ownership shouldn't make a difference.

Did your friend not have a rental contract validated with Ejari? That should have protected him.

I'm guessing he didn't.....

Irishbeekeeper

X 2

mission

to be honest I have no idea - he has a signed lease agreement, but nonetheless, what you may have heard is clearly not the case. He went home, found the locks had been changed and hence couldn't get into the apartment. Courts handed the apartment over to the bank even though he was a sitting tenant.

Millhouse

Never rent from private landlords is the lesson learnt.

I've lived in 6 places since moving to the UAE. In my experience, when it comes to maintenance, rent negotiations and move-in/out, life is easier with a company landlord.

You do have to be careful with building quality at the outset as when they build on spec they tend to be cheaper. Hence I'm having my ceilings removed right now while they fix the air-leak from the bins to my apartment (this time properly rather than the bodge).

mission

[QUOTE=Millhouse;12098408]Never rent from private landlords is the lesson learnt.[QUOTE]
totally agree
this whole sarga has definitely opened my eyes.

DXBtoDOH

You're a sweet gal and I have a feeling your friend isn't being entirely upfront. I don't doubt what he told you is true - but he probably left out some details.

A mate of mine went through a foreclosure process with his apartment when his landlord did a runner. The bank sent notices to his apartment (taped to the door) so he knew what was happening. He said the whole process took many months but RERA confirmed that the bank would respect his existing tenancy contract. And he was able to renew with the bank when they finally took possession. Lost his deposit but that was the extent of the damages to him.

I found this same topic posted on another expat forum just a few weeks ago. I don't think I'm allowed to link to another forum on here, but suffice it to say the poster received notice from the bank via a home delivered notice that his rental apartment was being foreclosed, his landlord was missing, the bank confirmed that the process of foreclosure was ongoing and would take basically six months. His issue was that his tenancy contract was due for renewal in a few weeks and he didn't know what to do. Bank doesn't own the apartment yet, so they can't sign a renewed contract. A few posters responded by saying he'd hit the jackpot by having free accommodation till the bank took over the apartment, while RERA apparently told him to leave his next rental cheques with them for the new owners to collect.

My guess is what happened with your mate is that he knew his apartment was in foreclosure and thought he struck gold with the idea that it would take forever for the bank to sort it out so he had "free" rent for a while. So he never bothered to renew the contract or leave a cheque with RERA for the bank when they ultimately took the apartment. And he came home one day and discovered that the repossession happened a lot quicker than anticipated and boom, locks were changed. And he doesn't have a leg to stand on for he was effectively a squatter.

Could be wrong, of course, but methinks this is what happened.