Dubai property service charges - Here's how it impacts a homeowner!

Dubai: At a time when property values and rents across Dubai have been in decline for the last four years, there’s one cost element that kept on rising – service charges. And these days, it’s proving more than just an irritant for property buyers.

“Depending on the age of the building in a community, service charges have gone up between 10 and 25 per cent in the last four years,” said Uzair Razi at Global Capital Partners, a real estate consultancy. “This has coincided with rents falling by about a third during the same time period.

“Yes, the increase was in part due to inflationary pressures, but primarily on account of electricity charges as well as the higher cost involved with the upkeep of buildings that were historically not properly looked after the way they should have been.”

Razi’s sentiments are being echoed across freehold communities and by property owners. This has led to often testy exchanges between them and developers, and with facilities management companies caught in the crossfire.