Dubai: If poor maintenance of a residential unit is making the apartment uninhabitable, can you as a tenant leave without paying early termination charges? What are your rights as per the rental laws of the UAE? A Gulf News reader wrote in asking this question.
She said: “We are a Filipino couple renting a studio apartment for eight months now. Since we took over the apartment, we have faced non-stop maintenance issues and the worst part is the severe mould infestation all over the place that has already affected our personal belongings in these months. We requested the real estate broker to inform the landlord that we want to vacate the apartment since the mould problem could not be solved and the monthly repairs have severely affected us. The broker responded that as advised by the landlord, we could leave the apartment anytime but we would have to pay the early termination charges. We already suffered living in a dirty house as the wall paint keeps getting scraped off and we have to regularly repaint the walls, with no success. Is it lawful for the landlord or broker to demand payment from us given that the condition of the apartment is very bad? Should we raise the issue with the Dubai Land Department?”