What to ask a Dubai brokerage before you sign
Most agents in this city choose a firm on the split and find out afterwards that the split was the least important number in the room. The questions below are the ones that decide what an agency contract is actually worth, and every one of them has an answer a well run firm can give you in a sentence.
The short answer
Ask a Dubai brokerage four things before you sign: the commission split and the exact event that triggers payment, where leads come from and how they are allocated, whether the firm sponsors your visa and holds your Brokers Registration Number, and who pays for portal listings and marketing. Get all four in writing.
- Check the firm
- Every licensed brokerage has an Office Registration Number, issued by the Dubai Land Department and publicly verifiable
- Check your own licence
- A Brokers Registration Number is issued to you, not the firm, and is tied to one brokerage at a time
- Check the advertising
- Property advertised in Dubai requires a Trakheesi permit; ask who pulls it and who pays for it
- Get it in writing
- Split, payment trigger, marketing costs and exit terms all belong in the contract, not the interview
What is the split, and what exactly triggers payment
The percentage is the number every agency leads with and the one that tells you least on its own. Two firms offering the same split can pay very differently, because the split is only the first of three things that decide what reaches you.
The second is the trigger. Ask which event releases your commission: the transfer at the Land Department, the firm receiving cleared funds, or a fixed number of days after either. Then ask how many days. A high split paid long after the transaction has closed is worth less than a lower one paid promptly, and the difference compounds across a year of deals.
The third is deductions. Ask what comes out before the split is applied and what comes out after, and get the list rather than a reassurance. Anything the firm spends on your behalf has to be recovered somewhere, and a firm that has thought about its own model can tell you exactly where.
The percentage
What share of the commission is yours, and whether it moves with performance. If it is tiered, ask what resets the tier and when.
The trigger
The specific event that starts the clock, and the number of days after it. Ask for both, in writing, in the contract.
The deductions
What is taken off before your share is calculated, and what is billed to you afterwards. Portal fees and marketing spend are the usual two.
Where do the leads come from, and how are they given out
This is the question that separates two firms offering identical splits, and it is the one most commonly answered with a word rather than a process. "We provide leads" can mean a funded portal presence with a written allocation rule, or it can mean that leads exist somewhere in the business and you may see one.
Ask where the leads originate: portal enquiries the firm pays for, the firm's own marketing, referrals from past clients, or the developer relationships the firm holds. Then ask how they are allocated between agents, and ask for the rule rather than the reassurance. A firm that distributes by rota will say so. A firm that distributes by performance will say so, and will tell you what happens in your first month before you have any performance to weigh.
Ask what proportion of the team's business came from firm-supplied leads last year against what agents sourced themselves. A firm that does not know is telling you something. A firm that does know, and says the number is low, is being straight with you, and that is more useful than a promise.
Who sponsors your visa, and who holds your BRN
Two separate things get conflated here, and they have different consequences when you leave.
The first is your residence visa. If the brokerage sponsors it, your right to remain in the country is attached to your employment. That is normal and it is not in itself a problem, but it changes the balance of a disagreement, so you should understand it before you sign rather than during a dispute. Ask who bears the cost of the visa and the medical, whether any of it is recoverable from you, and under what circumstances.
The second is your Brokers Registration Number. It is issued to you rather than to the firm, and it is tied to one brokerage at a time, which means moving firms requires it to be released and reissued. Ask what the firm's process is for that, and ask how long it took the last person who left. The answer to the second question is usually more informative than the answer to the first.
Who pays for portals, photography and marketing
Property in Dubai is sold on portals, and a portal presence is expensive. Somebody funds it, and the answer is usually some combination of the firm and the agent. There is no single correct arrangement, but there is a correct time to find out which one you are joining.
Ask whether portal listing credits are provided, capped or billed. Ask who pays for photography and video on your listings, and whether that is an in-house team or something you arrange and expense. Ask whether there is a marketing budget attached to you and who authorises spending from it.
Advertising a property in Dubai requires a permit through the Land Department's Trakheesi system, tied to the listing. Ask who pulls the permit, how long it usually takes, and whether the cost sits with the firm or with you. A firm where agents chase their own permits is not necessarily a bad firm, but it is a different job from one where that is handled, and it should not be a surprise in your second week.
What happens to your pipeline if you leave
Ask this at the interview, precisely because it is uncomfortable to ask at the interview. The answer tells you how the firm behaves at the moment it has the least incentive to behave well.
There are three things to establish. What happens to a deal that has been agreed but not transferred when you resign, and whether you are paid on it. What happens to the client relationships and the data you brought in with you. And what notice period applies, in both directions.
None of these need to be generous to be acceptable. They need to be stated. A firm with a clear, unflattering policy is easier to work with than one that has never written the policy down, because the second one decides it in the moment, and it decides it after you have handed in your notice.
Deals in progress
Agreed but not transferred at the point you resign. Ask whether you are paid, at what rate, and when.
Clients and data
What you brought with you, and what you built while there. Ask what the contract says rather than what is customary.
Notice, both ways
What you owe the firm and what the firm owes you. Asymmetric notice periods are worth noticing before you sign one.
What should be in writing before you sign
Everything above is answerable in a conversation, and a conversation is not a contract. The four things that most often turn into disputes are the commission split with its payment trigger, the deductions, the visa and BRN release process, and the treatment of deals in progress when you leave.
Ask for those four in the document. Not as an ultimatum, and not as a test of the firm's character. Ask because a written term is one both sides can consult later without either of them having to remember the room correctly, which is a service to the firm as much as to you.
If a firm declines to put one of them in writing, that is information rather than an accusation. Ask why. There are legitimate answers, and the willingness to give one is itself part of what you are assessing.
Where this leads
Questions about this
The ones that come up most often, answered without a pitch.
No. A Brokers Registration Number is linked to one licensed brokerage at a time, which is why moving firms requires the current one to release it before the new one can register you. Ask any prospective employer what their release process is and how long it took the last person who used it.
Arrangements vary between firms and there is no regulated standard, so neither answer is a red flag on its own. What matters is that you know which arrangement you are joining before you join it, and that it is written down rather than described. Ask whether credits are provided, capped or billed back to you.
Yes, and a firm that treats the question as premature has answered a different question. The split, the payment trigger and the deductions decide whether the role is viable for you, and establishing that early is a courtesy to both sides rather than an imposition.
Every licensed Dubai brokerage holds an Office Registration Number issued by the Dubai Land Department, and it is publicly verifiable. Ask for the ORN and check it yourself rather than taking the number from a website. A firm that gives it without hesitation has told you something useful.
That changes which firms are a fit, not which questions to ask. If anything the questions matter more, because a joiner without a network is more dependent on the firm's leads, training and marketing, which are exactly the three things the list above is designed to test.
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House Of Orange Real Estate is a licensed Dubai brokerage, ORN 1484735. We publish this because we recruit, and we would rather you put the questions on these pages to us than take our word for anything. If a firm cannot answer them, that is the answer.