What gets an agent fined or suspended

Who fines and suspends brokers in Dubai?

The Real Estate Regulatory Agency, the regulatory arm of the Dubai Land Department. Law No. 4 of 2019, which replaced the 2007 law that established it, gives it the power to license and regulate real property activities and monitor the people who carry them out, to keep the brokers register and issue broker cards, to investigate complaints and act on them, and to approve and monitor the content of real estate advertisements.

The day to day work sits with the Agency's Real Estate Control Department, whose director is quoted in the 2023 and 2024 announcements below. Warnings and violations reach the brokerage through Trakheesi, the Department's licensing system: the Practice Guide describes it as receiving and responding to any violations or warnings issued to the company.

What follows is drawn from the Department's own announcements, its published FAQ and its Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide. Where they say nothing about a kind of conduct, this page says so rather than filling the gap.

What has the Land Department actually announced?

Seven enforcement announcements, in date order. Six are the Department's own releases; one, marked, is news reporting of a Department statement whose release we could not find. The wording in the middle column follows each announcement.

Three things stand out when they are read together. The same figure recurs: every fine in this record that carries an amount is AED 50,000, which the Department described in 2020 as progressive; the fines resolution doubles it for a repeat within a year. Companies are counted more often than individuals, but individuals are not left out: the 2024 figure counts brokers, and the 2022 action suspended nine brokers as well as fining their office. And the only suspension of individual brokers in this record is for cold calling, not advertising.

The public is part of the mechanism. The Department invites reports of adverts without a permit through its Real Estate Violations System, and of unsolicited calls through the Dubai REST app, and it says its Madmoun service makes it easy to report an advert whose details do not match its code.

Why does so much of it concern advertising?

Because advertising is the part of the job the regulator can see. The July 2024 announcement put the first half of that year at 450 field inspection tours of companies and projects against 1,530 inspections of advertisements, and the Department now monitors portal listings daily with an AI platform. An advert is public, dated and checkable against its permit in a way most other conduct is not.

The announcements also record a change of approach. In December 2023 the Department said that, after a grace period, it would enforce directly on companies failing to meet advertising conditions without issuing prior warnings. Six weeks later, in a separate announcement, it fined thirty companies at once.

How the permit and the QR code work, and what an advert must carry, has its own piece in this section.

What has been announced about cold calling and client data?

One enforcement action in the Department's own releases, and it was severe. On 29 April 2022 the Department announced that nine brokers had been suspended from practising for three months, and their brokerage office fined AED 50,000, for cold calling and direct telemarketing. The same announcement stated the penalty for non-compliant companies as a fine of AED 50,000 and/or suspension of the broker's card for no less than three months, and said RERA had previously warned companies against direct contact with customers.

The announcement also named the tools on the other side. The Green List service in the Dubai REST app includes a Report Malicious Calls function, and the Department invited owners and the public to report unsolicited promotional calls from real estate companies through it. It closed by saying companies must commit to using official marketing channels after obtaining an official permit from RERA.

On client data more broadly, we found no Department enforcement announcement. The Practice Guide lists maintaining privacy among the ethics of the profession and has its own section on the Green List; the regulator states its position there in its own words, and that is where to read it.

What about unlicensed practice and working outside your brokerage?

Executive Council Resolution No. 25 of 2009 lists a fine of AED 50,000 for conducting brokerage in Dubai without a RERA licence, doubled for a repeat within one year. The Department's FAQ adds that a broker may lose the right to claim a commission if found not to be licensed by RERA, if working for the other party in a manner inconsistent with the interests of the party they represent, or if accepting a promise of benefit from the other party in circumstances the FAQ describes as contrary to good faith. The same FAQ says a broker loses the licence for providing false information when applying for it.

Off-plan has its own conditions. The Practice Guide says a broker marketing an off-plan project must ensure it is licensed and registered with RERA, that there is an escrow account, and that there is a marketing contract between the developer and the brokerage. The May 2020 fine in the table above touched the same ground: promoting projects not registered under the company's name and taking money outside escrow.

We found no Department announcement of a penalty against an individual for brokering outside their registered brokerage. Whether brokering alongside another job or outside your firm is allowed at all has its own piece in the section on moving to Dubai, which sets out the published fine.

What penalties can apply, and what can end a registration?

The Department's FAQ describes its penalties in four sentences. The penalties applied to violating brokers vary. For some violations the company is warned, and a fine follows on recurrence. For others the fine is issued directly. And there is a mechanism to apply black points to the office and to the broker. Bylaw No. 85 of 2006, which regulates the brokers register, lists accumulating three black points among the grounds for cancelling a broker's registration. The list below names the penalties the published material mentions, not necessarily in this order.

Above that sits cancellation. The FAQ says a broker's registration is cancelled from RERA's records if the broker commits a fundamental violation of the applicable laws and directives, and that the decision can be challenged by grievance within a time limit the FAQ sets out. The bylaw puts the decision with the Director General on the committee's recommendation. If it ever applies to you, confirm the route and the deadline with the Department itself.

The standard the regulator measures conduct against is published. The Practice Guide lists ten ethics of the profession: fair treatment, respect in all procedures, privacy, honesty and uprightness, quality control, integrity, commitment to society, the interests of the contracting parties, preserving all documents, and respect for the Department's regulations and procedures. Its introduction calls on brokers to abide by the guide to avoid illegal practices, which it says will result in legal measures and violations.

1. 01

   Warning

   For some violations, per the DLD's FAQ. Received by the company through Trakheesi.

2. 02

   Fine

   On recurrence, or directly for some violations. Every announced fine has been AED 50,000.

3. 03

   Suspension

   Of the broker's card. The April 2022 cold calling penalty was three months.

4. 04

   Cancellation

   From the RERA register, for a fundamental violation or, under the bylaw, three black points.