Developer Changed the Unit in Dubai: What You Can Claim

The handover email arrives with a revised floor plan attached. The layout has moved, the balcony is smaller than the one in the brochure and the net area on the title documents is not the number in the sale agreement. The developer calls it a minor design optimisation.

Where a developer changed the unit in Dubai, the buyer has two separate claims and they are governed by different provisions. One is about area and it is measured in square metres. The other is about specification and it turns on the word material. Executive Council Resolution No. 6 of 2010, the Implementing Bylaw of Law No. 13 of 2008 Regulating the Interim Real Property Register, decides both.

Area Is a Compensation Claim, Not a Way Out

Article 13 deals with size. It is more generous than buyers expect in one direction and stricter in the other.

The net area is what counts for registration on the Real Property Register, so gross area figures used in marketing material are not the measure. Where the unit turns out larger, the excess is disregarded and the developer may not claim any payment for it unless the parties agreed otherwise. Where the unit turns out smaller, the developer must compensate the purchaser if the actual area is less than the net area by more than five percent. The compensation is calculated on the price of the unit. The sale agreement and the plan attached to it set the baseline both ways.

Two consequences follow. A shortfall of five percent or less produces no entitlement at all, which is why developers tend to land close to that line. And reported Dubai appellate practice treats the first five percent as excluded from the calculation even where the shortfall is larger, so a nine percent shortfall is compensated on four percent rather than on nine. Article 13 does not spell that calculation out in its own words, which makes it a point to confirm rather than assume.

What Article 13 does not do is create a termination right of its own. It provides a remedy in money. Crossing the five percent line does not by itself end the purchase.

That is not the end of the question. Article 20 closes with a ground covering any other circumstances requiring termination under the general legal rules. The Civil Transactions Law has its own provisions on a sale where the amount delivered differs from the amount stated. A shortfall large enough to change what the buyer was actually getting is argued through that route rather than through Article 13, which is a harder case than the claim for money.

Specification Changes Run Through Article 20

Article 20 lists the grounds on which a purchaser may apply to the competent court to terminate the contract. The one that matters here is the third: where the developer materially deviates from the specifications agreed in the agreement.

The fourth ground sits next to it and is worth knowing. Where it is proven after handover that the unit is unfit for use because of material construction defects, that is a separate route to the same remedy.

Everything in a specification dispute therefore collects around one word. A material deviation is not every change. The bylaw does not define the threshold, so the argument is run on what was promised in the agreement and the attached plan against what was delivered. A change of floor, a lost room, a balcony that is gone rather than reduced and a change of orientation are the kind of departures that carry that argument. A different tap fitting is not.

A buyer holding the signed plan and the specification schedule is comparing two documents. A buyer holding a brochure is comparing a document to an advertisement.

What the Bylaw Does Not Give You

The bylaw contains no provision giving a purchaser a veto over changes to a project or its plans. The bylaw addresses the subject from the other end, by giving a termination ground once a deviation has happened and is material.

Article 21 deals with a related situation, where a master developer varies the site in a way that changes the boundaries and the area of the project. It treats that as a matter outside the sub-developer's control. A buyer who assumes his developer is answerable for every change may find it came from a level above him.

That absence is what the variation clause in the sale agreement is doing. Most off-plan agreements in this market reserve a right to make changes. The breadth of that clause is the single most important thing to read before signing, because it is the clause the developer will rely on when the drawings change.

The Law Behind the Termination Ground

Article 20 ends with a fifth ground covering any other circumstances requiring termination under the general legal rules, which routes the question to the Civil Transactions Law.

Article 234 allows a party to demand performance or termination of the contract after formal notice, with compensation where it is justified. Article 339 governs compensation where the parties fixed none in advance and Article 340 governs compensation they did fix, where the court may reduce the agreed figure on proof that the loss was smaller and may exceed it only on proof of fraud or gross fault.

Those numbers come from Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025, in force since 1 June 2026, which repealed Federal Law No. 5 of 1985. Article 4 provides that it does not apply retroactively to preceding facts and acts. That is narrower than the version people quote. It does not mean an agreement signed before 1 June 2026 stays under the old code for every purpose. On an off-plan file the signature, the handover and the alleged deviation often fall on different sides of that date. Which code governs a given question depends on when the relevant fact or act occurred, so that is settled before any article number is cited.

Notice Comes Before Anything Else

The step buyers skip is the formal notice. Article 234 is built around it. A buyer who accepts keys, moves in and complains afterwards has made the material deviation argument considerably harder to run, because conduct at handover is the first thing a developer points to.

Where the difference appears at handover, the position is preserved by recording it in writing at that moment. Where the figures are disputed, a court appointed expert is the usual route to an authoritative net area.

A File That Turns on the Blueprint

A buyer signs for a two bedroom apartment of 1,000 square feet with a plan attached. At handover the net area is 910 square feet, the second bedroom has become a study without a window and the unit sits two floors lower than the one in the agreement. The developer points to a variation clause and offers a service charge waiver.

Those are three different claims in one file. When a matter of this kind reaches me as a Legal Consultant, the assessment starts with six things:

1. The sale agreement and every plan or specification schedule attached to it, as signed
2. The net area stated in the agreement against the net area registered at the Land Department
3. The variation clause in its exact wording, with what it permits the developer to change
4. What was recorded in writing at handover and on what date
5. Whether formal notice has been served, with what it demanded
6. Whether the change originated with the developer or with a master developer varying the site

Buyers tend to treat a changed unit as one grievance. The bylaw splits it into a measured claim for money under Article 13 and an argument about materiality under Article 20. Those two travel at different speeds and need different evidence. The file that recovers anything is usually the one where somebody wrote down what was promised on the day it was promised.

There is more on property disputes in Dubai on the practice area page.