Increasing cost of Living in Dubai Versus the decreasing value of the EK salary

[uplock]

Stating the obvious isn’t it?

Might be a little more difficult to fob off the ever increasing cost of living here in Dubai and the ever decreasing real world buying power of my EK salary how ever I don’t plan on holding my breath.

Apparently there is a Dubai Law which prevents landlords from increasing your rent for the first 2 years of your contract.

Ho ho ho..........Just had my renewal notice for a 1 bedroom apartment increased from 55,000 AED to 65,000 pay up or move.

That’s nearly a 20% increase in my housing costs with no real increase in salary.

Hope that the UAE decides to have the AED tied to a basket of currencies before the US $ takes the inevitable swan dive.

Interesting to read in the local rags that the locals feel they deserve to raise the wage of government workers by 20%


Wonder if that generosity will filter down to us guys at Emirates? Oh thats right we are a private airline not owned by the government, so guess we dont count.

Guess I will fork over my rent cheques on one of my 8 days off this month.

Lifes good in the desert!:cool: Check out what the paper says (http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/NationNF.asp?ArticleID=149569)

[BigGeordie]

Actually there is no law as such, this is only what the Municipality Rent Tribunal "expect" to happen. You could try taking the landlord to the tribunal. If he happens to be a local then good luck.

[cargosales]

You sure about the 'no law as such' BG? (I don't know the correct answer)

I know one of our guys here kicked up when his landlord tried to increase his rent for year two and the landlord backed down pronto. I'll ask him on what exact basis he objected to the rise if you like.

Might be worth a go Uplock?



CS

[6100]

If you read the law advice section in the Gulf News, this problem comes up a lot.

From memory there is some restriction on how much and when rent can be increased.

It may be worth following up

[BigGeordie]

Yes, I'm sure. Well, my information comes from the Gulf News anyway. You can complain to the "concerned authourities" about "unreasonable" increases and their guidelines "suggest" no increase in year 2 and then not more than 20% a year after that. In practice I suspect reasonable would be defined as whatever the market will stand, and if you don't like it move out. As with so much else in Dubai it is far from black and white. If anybody knows any different and can back it up with a reference I would be delighted to know!

[newswatcher]

I "endured" this tribunal back in the mid-80s. As you might expect, conducted entirely in Arabic so, if you are thinking about it, try and get your company's "Mr Fixit" to accompany you. Not as "local-biased" as you might think, unless things have changed substantially since!

this (http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/NationNF.asp?ArticleID=121800) article appeared in May last year.