Dubai court orders real estate firm to pay Dhs1.8m to investor for breaching the contract

Dubai Real Estate Court has ordered a real estate development company to pay Dhs1,815,000 to an Asian investor due to the company’s failure to deliver a plot of land she had purchased to build a villa on.

The company also failed to protect the investor’s rights, as the land was seized and sold at a public auction.

According to the case file, the investor filed a lawsuit against the project’s owning company, the managing company, the project itself, and the owner of the first company, requesting the return of Dhs1,665,000, which she had paid for a 605-square-metre plot of land to build a villa, along with Dhs1,000,000 in compensation for the damages she incurred.

The four appellees submitted memoranda requesting the dismissal of the lawsuit, arguing that there was no basis for the investor’s request to terminate the contract. They claimed that she had delayed constructing the building within the agreed 24-month period and had not completed the payment for the land.

The investor’s lawyer submitted a memorandum stating that his client had requested the termination of the contract and compensation after discovering that a lawsuit had been filed against the company that sold her the land and final rulings affirmed that the plot of land was originally granted as a gift from the third company to the first, and a final ruling had invalidated this gift.

Due to legal disputes among the partners, the land was seized and sold at a public auction to a well-known company, which now legally owns it.

The lawyer noted that the investor’s failure to pay the remaining amount for the land was due to the company’s inability to transfer ownership to her and the judicial ruling selling the land at auction removed the company’s ownership, which was sufficient reason for the investor to halt full payment for the land.

The court clarified that the contract was the responsibility of the first company only, and therefore, the second, third, and fourth appellees were not involved in the lawsuit. Consequently, the court obligated the company to repay the amount to the investor.