Dubai is the world's boomtown of the early 21st century, a former sleepy trading post and fishing village on the Arabian Gulf that embarked on one of the biggest construction and development programmes the planet has ever known.
During the 1990s, in a bid to overcome its dependence on dwindling oil reserves, Dubai's rulers decided to diversify the economy into new areas of business and services, prominent among which were real estate and tourism.
Their ambitions were on a monumental scale and have led to such breathtaking developments as the Burj Al Arab, dubbed the world's first seven-star hotel; a series of artificial islands, the Palms and the World; and completing next year, the world's tallest building.
A member of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai has also become one of the most vibrant hot spots for property buyers and investors.
Travel
Air
Dubai International Airport is the subject of a massive $550m expansion programme that will this year (2007) see the addition of a third terminal and two new concourses, boosting its capacity from around 25m passengers a year to 70m.
Dubai's national airline, Emirates, is the fastest-growing major airline in the world and has no less than 90 aircraft on order, including 45 of the new Airbus Super Jumbo. You can take direct scheduled flights to Dubai from five UK cities: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow. Airlines flying the Heathrow route include British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates, Royal Brunei and Singapore, with around a dozen flights daily.
The direct flight time from the UK is six hours. To save money, it is worth considering flights with airlines such as Etihad - the new UAE national airline - and Air Arabia, into the neighbouring Emirates, such as Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, with a road connection at the other end.
Sea
Arriving in Dubai by sea isn't much of an option, unless you're coming from Iran, or one of the other Emirates, in which case there are some limited services by dhow and hydrofoil. Dhows are the traditional boats of the region, used for cargo and pleasure cruising; and there are also smaller boats called abras which ply their way across the emirate's main waterway, the Dubai Creek. On the whole, though, best to stick to land.
Train
Dubai doesn't have a railway system as yet. From 2009, it will have a light railway known as the Dubai Metro, which will run driverless trains on four lines, including airport connections. By 2020, the metro is projected to have a capacity of almost 2m passengers a day.
Roads
The traffic congestion problems in Dubai have become notorious; they are chiefly the result of the construction boom in which new roads can hardly keep pace with the amount of building going on and there is a particular problem in getting across Dubai Creek. Nevertheless, the consensus is that Dubai's roads are pretty good on the whole and they include motorways of up to eight lanes connecting the city to the main destinations, such as Abu Dhabi, which is 90 minutes' drive away.
Car hire
Car hire is readily available, with all the main companies represented, and rates start from around Dhirams 70 (£) a day. Petrol, of course, is wonderfully cheap at under £1 a gallon, or 20p a litre. On the minus side, the roads can be pretty dangerous with a high rate of fatalities from accidents and it is advised to drive with extreme caution - particularly in city streets where pedestrians are liable to step out in front of cars. The police are also hot on speeding and operate many radar traps. Taxis are a good alternative to driving yourself and the majority are metered - there is even a fleet of pink taxis driven by and designed exclusively for women.
Buses
Buses are regulated by the UAE's Road and Transport Authority and are all operated by the municipalities at present, although there are plans to bring in some private operators over the next few years. Dubai Municipality has a fleet of 516 buses plying some 62 routes and carrying 240,000 buses a day. Local fares are typically around Dh1.5 (19p); a single to Abu Dhabi costs Dh15 (£).
Climate
Yes, it's hot. Temperatures can reach a searing 45° to 50° centigrade in July and August, making it virtually impossible to spend time outside during the day. With humidity of around 60%, the result can be extreme perspiration.
So most people stay safely inside with air conditioning during July and August. Winter is the most pleasant time to be in Dubai, with temperatures in the low 20s° centigrade during December and January, rising to 30° centigrade and beyond in spring and autumn. Dubai doesn't get a lot of rain - most of it during the winter months - but when it does rain the falls can be heavy and cause chaos, with the wadis (river beds) swelling and bursting and the roads frequently flooding, so this is a time to take great care.
Technically, the climate of the UAE is described as “sub-tropical, arid” and the city of Dubai is on a narrow and flat coastal strip characterised by scrub vegetation, with desert dunes behind. It is probably the only place in the world where you can ski - on the world's third largest indoor ski slope, with a second ski dome due in 2008 - against a backdrop of sun-drenched palm trees.
Language
The official language of the UAE is Arabic. However, it is worth bearing in mind that of Dubai's official population of 1.422m in 2006, it has been estimated that more than 80% are non-natives, representing some 180-odd nationalities speaking a wide range of languages in which English, Hindi, Malayam and Urdu are predominant.
English has been steadily growing in influence and is arguably the most widely spoken tongue now in the UAE, a fact that has prompted some academics to deplore the decline in speaking Arabic, even among the native population. Significantly, English is the language used for international business and most road signs as well as government websites are bi-lingual in Arabic and English, so it is quite possible to get by the vast majority of the time without learning more than the smattering of Arabic required for polite greetings.
Legal documents can be in both languages, so even this is not necessarily an issue, although to understand the UAE law fully you would need to read Arabic. There are a number of language schools which teach Arabic in Dubai, including Berlitz and the Arabic Language Centre, which has been in operation since 1980.
Legal
Visas
If you are a UK citizen, you don't need to apply for a visa before visiting Dubai, as you get one automatically on your arrival; a free tourist visa lasts for 60 days with the option to extend for a further 30 days. So you can stay in the country for three months at a time, before needing to leave and come back with a new visa.
The simplest way to do that is to drive over the border into Oman and then straight back. To get a residency permit - also known as a residency visa - you need to be sponsored by somebody. That could be an employer if you are going to be working in UAE, or if you are simply buying property, and don't intend to work in the country, then the developer who sells you the property can act as the sponsor - but only as long as you remain the property owner.
There is no minimum time you need to spend in the country before you can apply for residency but you do have first to pass a medical at one of the country's main hospitals and obtain a health card. If you have HIV or other serious conditions you are unlikely to be accepted.
Property ownership and the buying process
Owning property in Dubai has been controversial in the past. Foreigners were first allowed to buy property in Dubai in 2002, but only on a leasehold basis and with no proper title registration process in place. Many went ahead and bought anyway.
In March 2006, a law was passed (the Dubai Real Property Registration Law) granting non-residents of the UAE (or other Gulf Cooperation Council states) the right to buy property in designated areas on a freehold basis and to have it registered with the Dubai Lands Department for the first time.
The freehold condition applies to properties that have been built by the Emirate's three ‘master developers': Emaar, Nakheel and Dubai Properties and there was a further stipulation that owners of properties in their development zones - said to be more than 90% of Brits who bought prior to the new law - would be able to apply for freehold status retrospectively.
There are still a few lingering doubts: for example, it is still early days to see whether somebody wishing to sell their freehold property will run into problems with transferring the title. But on the whole, the situation is now widely considered far more satisfactory than it was previously.
In practice, buying in Dubai usually means buying from a developer and is pretty straightforward. The first step is to fill in a reservation form for the property you've chosen. You'll also have to pay a deposit, which varies from development to development, but is usually between £1,000 and £3,000.
You then get a Sale and Purchase Agreement, which commits you to buying the property; the exact schedule of payments will be set out for each development. There's no obligation to employ a solicitor - mainly because there is no formal conveyancing system as yet in Dubai. It might well be advisable to appoint a lawyer anyway; and if you are buying a resale property, it is vital that you check with the original developer that the seller is the registered owner and therefore has the right to sell it, since it is still too early to be able to check this reliably with the Dubai Lands Department.
The important thing when buying in Dubai is to carry out your due diligence on the development itself. So much is being built that it is inevitable some developments will fail to live up to expectations. You need to satisfy yourself about the quality of the building itself and that it will have all the services required, including road access. Getting legal help is particularly critical with regard to inheritance, since this is governed largely by Sharia Law and is not the same as in the UK.
Choosing the property is a big subject in itself. There is a wealth of developments that fit into the government's designation for overseas property buyers, so the real question is what you intend to use the property for.
If it is a buy-to-let investment you may wish to look at some of the key economic developments such as Dubai Marina or Dubai Sports City, which are likely to create jobs for many workers seeking accommodation.
Fees and taxes
One of the attractions of buying in the UAE is that there are no transaction taxes such as stamp duty or transfer tax to pay when you purchase. There is a 1.5% land registry fee; this is usually paid one third by the developer and two thirds by the buyer.
Communications
Telephones
The main telecoms provider in Dubai and the rest of the UAE is Etisalat - it stands for Emirates Telecommunications Corporation - which is the sixth largest company in the entire Middle East, having been formed in 1976.
Until recently, it enjoyed a virtual monopoly on telephone services in the Emirates, but in February 2006, the government granted a licence to a new rival service called du, owned by the Emirates Integrated Telecommunication Service (EITC).
So far, du is only offering landline services to customers within limited parts of Dubai- it took over DIC Telecom which already offers services within a number of newly developed properties in Dubai. But its footprint is expected to expand fairly rapidly.
Both Etilastat and du have English language websites and offer most of the telephone service features available in the UK. Within the UAE, all landline calls are normally free.
Mobiles
Etisalat and du are again the two options in the mobile market. Du launched its service in February 2007 and its main innovation was to introduce pay-by-the-second tariffs. On both networks you can choose between a range of monthly plans and pay-as-you-go plans, with a wide network of international roaming partners.
You can take your UK mobile to Dubai and use it with roaming, but it would be considerably cheaper to buy a new phone or put in a local SIM card while you are there. You will normally have to produce your passport and tourist visa in order to do so.
Broadband
It may come as something of a surprise to anyone moving to the UAE from the UK to learn that the internet is - to some extent - censored. The extent of censorship is the subject of a good deal of speculation, but certainly includes adult sites.
For most purposes, though, you can get a broadband service that functions much the same as in the UK, with speeds of up to 2mb per second readily available from Etisalat or du. Internet cafes are not widely available in Dubai, though their number is growing.
Television
Satellite and cable operators in Dubai include Orbit, Showtime and Firstnet, though there are a number of others. Orbit carries BBC Prime, which is a showcase of BBC entertainment including the likes of Eastenders, Silent Witness, Top Gear and old favourites such as Dad's Army.
Showtime is good for movies and sports, and Firstnet likewise for reality shows. (It's worth mentioning, by the way, that London entertainment guide Time Out publishes a weekly Dubai edition). There are also a number of local TV and radio shows in English. What you won't be able to do is pick up terrestrial TV - ITV, BBC and Channel 4 as the Astra satellite simply doesn't extend as far as the Gulf.
Financial
Banking
The currency of UAE is the dirham and at the time of writing (June 2007) the exchange rate is approximately £1 = Dh7. Euros are also used increasingly throughout the Gulf, supplanting the traditional importance of the dollar to some degree.
In a country that is looking to establish itself as a leading financial centre, it's hardly surprising that many of the world's leading banks can be found in Dubai. Of the UK high street banks, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and HSBC all have operations in Dubai, aimed not just at British expatriates, but at locals and residents from around the world. In addition, there is a good selection of Middle Eastern banks to choose from.
Lloyds has five branches in Dubai and offers a wide range of services including internet banking and multi-currency accounts. Barclays has offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and offers a ‘premier banking' service to those with income of $200,000-plus. HSBC has eight branches throughout the Emirates, of which three are in Dubai. It also has a “Shariah-compliant” investment product among its offerings.
By and large your banking can be done in English, pretty much as at home, with internet and phone banking, credit cards and ATM machines all widely available. This is one thing you don't have to worry too much about in Dubai.
Mortgages
The three UK banks are among those who now offer mortgages to non-UAE citizens. The mortgage market has taken off since the freehold property law was introduced last year and there is a choice of at least a dozen providers overall.
Other lenders include Dubai Bank, Tamweel and the National Bank of Dubai. You can typically borrow around 60% of the purchase price if you are non-resident or up to 80% if you are resident, but a non-citizen. Some lenders will only lend against specific developments and at different levels; for example in the case of HSBC, the list includes the Palm islands and a number of Emaar properties; but the loan to value varies from 60% to 90%.
Loans are denominated in dirhams and interest rates ranged from 7.25% upwards at the time of writing; so this is not a cheap option and you would do better to raise the money in the UK's cheaper mortgage market if that is an option.
Taxation
If the climate, shopping and attractive property prices are not good enough reasons to buy, then perhaps there is a clincher. Taxation is virtually non-existent and has been since 1894. There are no personal taxes, such as income or capital gains tax and only a modest 5% municipality tax - equivalent to 5% on rental property - as well as a few ad hoc taxes on goods such as alcohol.
However, unless you become resident overseas for tax purposes, which means spending at least 180 days a year outside the UK, then you will not be able to benefit from the main exemptions and will still be expected to pay income and capital gains tax in the UK.
Calendar
The one big difference that anyone from the UK will quickly notice in any Arab country is that Friday is the holy day of the week and is largely a day off. In UAE, the days worked by shops, offices, banks and the like are generally Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday as the weekend. Having said that, some places of work still operate from Saturday to Wednesday; and even on Fridays, many shops and restaurants remain open.
The main holidays during the year are Eid Al Fitr- which is the festival marking the end of Ramadan and generally occurs in October, though the date varies; and Eid Al Adha, marking the conclusion of the pilgrimage to Mecca at the end of December. These give three days and four days holiday respectively. Other dates to look out for in 2007 are:
- January 1 - New Year's Day, the same as in Europe
- January 20 - Islamic New Year's Day
- March 31 - The Prophet Mohammed's birthday
- December 2 - UAE National Day
Many of these dates vary according to sightings of the moon.
July 2007
Alexander Garrett is a freelance property writer who contributes regularly to The Observer and British Airways' Business Life.
The content provided in the Primelocation.com guides is for information only. In all cases, independent and professional advice should be sought before buying, selling, letting or renting property, or buying financial services products.