Dubai Land Department launches online payments for service fees

Dubai Land Department (DLD) has launched an electronic system for tenants and home owners to pay service fees, which has been designed to be more fair and transparent.

Operated through its regulatory arm Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), ‘Mollak’ – Arabic for ‘owners’ – allows owners to pay community service fees directly to the system, as opposed to the developer.

It monitors service charge payments in co-owned properties and works within the real estate owners’ databases and the database of real estate units registered and approved by DLD.

HE Marwan bin Ghalita, CEO of RERA, said: “Through the system, RERA seeks to increase the role of governance, regulation, and supervision as well as the participation of private sector specialists to increase real estate transparency and maintain the balance between real estate developers, management companies, and homeowners.

“This is to increase customer satisfaction and happiness in the services provided by RERA as well as facilitate the procedures of real estate unit owners when dealing with management companies and managing service-fee accounts.”

Through the system, 468 bank accounts were successfully opened for project service charges, 88 management companies and 1,212 real estate projects were registered and approved by RERA as well as 200,000 real estate units, comprising residential apartments, villas, offices, and commercial shops.

RERA also attracted seven banks to act as account trustees for co-owned properties and registered eight financial auditors to explicitly audit the application fees that were submitted for accreditation.

Senior director of the real estate relations regulatory department at RERA, Mohammed bin Hammad said: “Thanks to the innovative new Mollak system, co-owned property projects will be managed with the utmost provision of high-quality services in line with the expectations of owners and residents.”

RERA’s registration of auditors and banks to monitor transactions in the system is evidence of its emphasis on security, regulation, and customer trust.”

Real estate unit owners are notified electronically of a unit’s service fees with the publication of a unit’s service-fee-approval data in the service and maintenance fees index on DLD’s website.

The management company then requests owners to pay the services fees through the Mollak system, and sends the service-fee invoices in accordance with the amounts approved by RERA but without any financial additions, especially as the system only works on financial accounts approved by RERA.

The system includes providing easy solutions to enable owners to pay service fees through approved channels that were agreed upon by banks and the electronic payment gateway, Noqoodi.