The deal is done. So why hasn’t anyone been paid?
Picture the scene. A buyer’s agent at Agency B has spent three weeks qualifying a client, arranging viewings, and holding the deal together through two rounds of counter-offers. The listing sits with Agency A, who did the Form A and issued the Trakheesi permit. Both sides are licensed, both did the work, both were civil on WhatsApp. The Form F is signed. The buyer’s manager’s cheque for the deposit is in the drawer. And then, nothing.
The listing agency collects from the buyer at the trustee office. The buyer’s agent at Agency B — who introduced the client, showed the unit, and drafted the negotiating position — is waiting on Agency A to hand over half the commission. That payment depends entirely on what was agreed between the two brokerages, when they agreed it, and whether it was written down. If the answer to any of those three questions is shaky, the money stalls. Sometimes it disappears.
This situation plays out in Dubai’s secondary market every single week. And it has almost nothing to do with the escrow law.
That matters, because agents routinely conflate Dubai’s actual escrow regime with the broader mechanics of how they get paid. Understanding the difference — precisely — is the first step to avoiding the disputes that cost agents weeks of follow-up, strained working relationships, and, at worst, a trip to DLD.
What the escrow law is actually for
Dubai issued Law No. 8 of 2007 under the Ruler’s authority, creating a regulated structure for how funds must be held and used in off-plan property transactions. It placed the Dubai Land Department in charge of registration and oversight, with the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) responsible for day-to-day supervision.
The law’s core mechanism is straightforward: an escrow account is a regulated bank account in which a buyer’s payments for an off-plan property are deposited throughout the construction period. Every developer selling off-plan units must open a dedicated escrow account with a DLD-approved bank, all buyer payments must be deposited directly into this account, and funds may only be released to the developer upon verified completion of construction milestones approved by RERA inspectors — a mechanism that prevents developers from diverting buyer funds to other projects or operational expenses.
That last point is the entire point. When Dubai’s off-plan market first took off, most developments were funded almost entirely by buyers paying in stages — it worked well while projects stayed on schedule, but when delays or defaults occurred, investors had little protection. The escrow requirement was the regulatory response to that structural vulnerability. It protects the buyer’s capital from misuse by the developer. Full stop.
Law No. 9 of 2007 mandates that developers deposit at least 20% of the project’s construction cost upfront in cash or via a bank guarantee prior to marketing or sales. Taken together, these two laws mean a developer cannot collect a single dirham from buyers without having skin in the game and without placing those funds under regulated oversight.
For the working agent, this is worth internalising clearly: the escrow law is a developer-compliance instrument, not an agent-payment instrument. It governs where the buyer’s purchase instalments go and who controls the release of those funds. It is silent on how commission moves between brokerages. It provides no protection at all for the inter-agency split on a co-broke deal.
Who the law actually protects — and who it does not
The beneficiary of Law No. 8 of 2007 is unambiguously the off-plan buyer. The developer may only access funds after achieving specific, RERA-approved construction milestones, and this system protects buyers’ money and ensures it is used only for the development of the registered project.
RERA may dispatch engineers to verify the site status and audit the escrow account, and they decide the best course between completion and cancellation. When a project gets cancelled due to a developer’s default or bankruptcy, a clear refund process kicks in — supervised liquidation of the project’s assets and distribution of funds to buyers.
Agents are mentioned in this framework only in one significant way: penalties may be incurred where a developer deals with a real estate broker who is not registered by RERA in accordance with the relevant bylaw concerning the Real Estate Brokers Register in the Emirate of Dubai. In other words, the escrow law has a passing interest in whether the brokers involved are licensed. It is not designed to ensure those brokers are paid, nor does it create any mechanism for distributing or protecting commission between agencies.
The agent’s protection framework is entirely separate — and considerably thinner.
The framework that does protect agents: RERA’s forms
RERA governs the agency relationship through a suite of prescribed forms, each with a defined role. For agents, four matter most in the context of getting paid and avoiding disputes.
Form A is the seller-agent listing agreement. It authorises the brokerage to market the property and sets the commission the seller has agreed to pay. Without a valid Form A, the listing agent has no documented basis for their fee.
Form B is the buyer-agent agreement. It records the agent’s mandate to represent the buyer, the commission the buyer has agreed to pay, and the scope of the search. Form A, Form B, Form F, and Form I are the standard RERA forms that govern the agency relationship and commission obligations in a transaction — and these forms need to be signed before an agent can legally claim commission on a deal.
Form F — the MOU — is the contract of sale between buyer and seller. It includes details such as terms and conditions, the property’s specifics, the agreed rate, and commission splits for both the buyer’s and seller’s agents. Once signed and witnessed by a RERA-certified agent, Form F becomes legally binding.
Form I is the document most agents in a co-broke deal underuse or skip entirely — to their cost. When an agent comes across a listing managed by another broker, the two agents can sign a Form I — a broker-to-broker agreement that outlines how they will split responsibilities and commission. Form I is the official agreement that governs the relationship between these two professionals, and its primary purpose is to protect the agents and ensure the transaction remains professional and transparent.
Without this form, there is no legal protection regarding how the deal is handled between the two agencies. That sentence deserves to be read twice by every agent who has ever forwarded a unit listing on WhatsApp with nothing but a voice note as the agreement.
What Form I actually records
The agent-to-agent agreement specifies the property in question, the names and RERA registration details of both agents, the commission split arrangement (typically 50/50 of the total commission), confidentiality obligations regarding client information, and terms governing how the agents will cooperate through the transaction.
Before the buyer’s agent can arrange viewings, share the property’s details, or participate in negotiations, both agents should ideally sign Form I — this protects the listing agent’s client relationship, ensures the buyer’s agent receives their agreed share of commission, and prevents disputes about who facilitated the sale. Without Form I, a buyer’s agent cannot legally represent their client’s interests when viewing or negotiating for a property listed by another brokerage.
Commission agreements between agents — for instance, when a buyer’s agent and a seller’s agent split a fee on a co-broke deal — are governed by RERA Form I, which must be formally signed before any commission is disbursed.
How disputes start — and why they are so common
Dubai operates with no exclusive mandate requirement. A seller can instruct up to three brokerages simultaneously under RERA’s Form A rules. Buyers bounce between agents freely. The same unit can appear on multiple portals under multiple Trakheesi permit numbers. This is the market structure. It is not a problem — it is the environment, and agents who thrive here work it effectively.
But it creates a specific pattern of dispute. Two agents orbit the same deal — one with a listing mandate, one with a buyer. They connect informally, often by message. They agree a split verbally — “fifty-fifty, as usual” — and proceed to viewings and negotiation without signing Form I, sometimes without even confirming agency names. The deal closes. One party pays the other late, pays less than agreed, or disputes who truly “introduced” the buyer. By then, the client has paid and moved on. The money is in one agency’s account. The other agency is holding a message thread.
Verbal agreements on commission are not enforceable under RERA dispute resolution. That is the governing reality. A WhatsApp message saying “50/50 ok bro” has value as evidence, but it is not a Form I. When things go wrong, the difference matters enormously.
Commission disputes are among the most common complaints filed with RERA. The reasons are not hard to find. Commission disputes are fact-specific — who introduced whom, what was signed, what was paid. When those facts live only in someone’s memory or a chat thread, both agencies have a story and neither story is wrong from their own vantage point.
The VAT dimension
The commission itself attracts VAT at 5%. On a transaction of AED 2,000,000, the commission is AED 40,000 plus AED 2,000 VAT, totalling AED 42,000. In a co-broke situation, agreeing the split in a Form I also needs to account for which agency is responsible for which portion of that VAT. An undocumented split creates ambiguity about who invoices whom and for what amount. That ambiguity is its own compliance problem, separate from the dispute about the money itself.
The off-plan commission gap
Off-plan is a somewhat different dynamic. The developer pays the commission — typically directly to the selling brokerage — on a schedule tied to buyer payments. The escrow law requires the buyer’s instalments to sit in the project’s escrow account, and the developer draws down as milestones are verified. Agent commission does not come from the escrow account; it is paid separately by the developer from their operating funds.
This matters to agents for a specific reason: if a developer delays, restructures, or faces financial difficulty, the buyer’s instalments are protected by the escrow framework. The agent’s commission has no equivalent protection. It is a contractual claim against the developer, subject to the developer’s payment schedule and willingness to pay. Agents who co-broke on off-plan deals — particularly where the buying agency is separately earning a referral from a developer — need to be especially precise about who is owed what, by whom, and on what trigger.
When disputes escalate: where agents go
If an inter-agency commission dispute cannot be resolved between the brokerages directly, the path runs through DLD and RERA, not the RDSC.
The Dubai Land Department regulates registered brokers and handles complaints about broker conduct — this is the route for unregistered practice, double-dipping, misrepresentation, or fee disputes with a brokerage.
The Rental Disputes Centre handles landlord-tenant disputes about the tenancy itself. Broker conduct sits with DLD/RERA — but if a commission issue has spilled into a tenancy (for example, disputed payments recorded against rent), the RDSC may become relevant too.
For rental transactions specifically: if a commission dispute arises, RERA’s Rental Disputes Settlement Centre handles the case, and having a written agreement is essential to win any dispute.
The outcomes available when a formal complaint is lodged are real, but they take time and require evidence. The RERA complaint procedure ensures transparency and provides a fair opportunity for both parties to explain their case, and depending on the severity of the issue, the agent may face warnings, fines, licence suspension, or cancellation. What they do not provide is a fast resolution. A civil case with the Dubai Courts can take up to two years. Even RERA’s own mediation process demands that both parties attend, present documents, and accept an outcome that may be based on whatever thin paper trail exists.
The agent who has a signed Form I wins. The agent who doesn’t has a much harder day.
The rental market and Ejari: where the same logic applies
In rentals, the commission structure is different — typically 5% of annual rent, paid by the tenant, with the commission due at signing — but the same friction points exist. Commission is typically due upon signing the MOU, also known as Form F, though some agents collect at the point of title transfer. In rentals, however, the operative document is the Ejari-registered tenancy contract. To file any rental dispute, you need to collect the tenancy contract, Emirates ID, Ejari certificate, rent receipts, and any written communication supporting your claim.
Agents who co-broke on rentals face an additional layer of complexity because the tenant commonly pays by post-dated cheques — sometimes covering the full year, sometimes in quarterly instalments. The commission is collected from that same tenant, at signing, in a separate cheque made out to the brokerage. If two agencies were involved and the split was not agreed in writing before the client issued the cheque, you are back to the same problem: one party has the money and the other is pursuing a verbal agreement.
Commission should always be paid by cheque made out to the brokerage, not to the individual agent personally — this is a RERA requirement and it creates a paper trail that protects both parties if a dispute arises later.
The licensing floor: everything else depends on this
Before any form offers any protection, one condition must be met. Only an agent holding an active RERA broker card, working under a brokerage with a valid Dubai trade licence, can lawfully collect commission, and the listing must carry a valid Trakheesi permit.
An unlicensed agent cannot legally collect commission, and any commission paid to an unlicensed agent is not protected under UAE law if a dispute arises. If a dispute arises, RERA cannot intervene unless the agent holds a valid BRN.
This is the floor beneath everything. The escrow law, the RERA forms, the RDSC — none of it is available to an unlicensed actor. When an agent refers a client to a colleague who turns out not to hold an active registration, and that colleague takes the commission, there is no regulatory framework to appeal to. The paper trail problem is compounded by the licensing problem, and the money is gone.
The pattern behind every stalled payment
Strip back every delayed or disputed payment in a Dubai co-broke deal, and you almost always find the same set of contributing factors:
- The split was discussed but not signed before viewings began.
- Form I was not executed, or was executed after the MOU was signed — by which point both agencies have conflicting recollections.
- The commission went to one agency as a single cheque, with the paying-down to the second agency treated as an internal administrative task that keeps being deferred.
- There is no agreed trigger — at which moment in the transaction does the second agency’s share become payable? On signing Form F? At the trustee office? Thirty days after title transfer?
- VAT was not discussed at all, so when the invoicing question arrives, it opens a fresh argument.
None of these are the result of bad faith in most cases. They are the result of two agencies moving fast in a market that rewards speed and doing the administrative scaffolding after the fact, or not at all.
The escrow law solved a version of this problem for off-plan buyers — it said: the money must be held in a regulated account before the transaction closes, and it is released only when defined conditions are met. The architecture is useful because it separates the holding of funds from the party who most wants to access them.
The principle that removes the friction
The escrow law protects buyers because it separates the flow of money from the intentions of the developer. The same logic applies to agent splits.
Form I ensures that both agents’ contributions are recognised and compensated fairly, encouraging collaboration rather than competition that might disadvantage clients. But Form I alone is not enough if it is unsigned, unsigned before viewings, signed with vague split percentages, or silent on timing. The form is the instrument. What fills it with force is the discipline of completing it — with the split percentage, the trigger for payment, the VAT treatment, and the agency bank details — before the client ever walks through the door.
The secondary implication is equally important: both agencies should be paid at the same moment, from the same transaction, without one agency acting as a collecting intermediary for the other. When one agency collects the full commission and then pays the other later, the second agency’s payment becomes a creditor claim against the first, dependent on the first agency’s internal processes, cashflow, and goodwill. The deal is done, the client is happy, and one agent is chasing an invoice.
Any commission arrangement must be agreed in writing on a RERA-approved form before services are rendered — if no written agreement exists and a dispute arises, the DLD arbitration system will default to the standard rate. That default outcome might be acceptable. But the time, stress, and relationship cost of reaching it is not.
The escrow law’s lesson — that money held under defined conditions, released on defined triggers, cannot be diverted — is the right model for inter-agency commission. The split agreed up front. The terms written on the appropriate form. Both agencies paid at the close of the transaction, not afterward by arrangement. That structure does not need special technology, a new platform, or any innovation. It needs two licensed brokers who understand the forms that already exist, who sign them before the deal moves, and who build the payment mechanic into the deal itself rather than hoping for the best once the client’s cheque has cleared.
That is not a new idea. It is what the regulatory framework was already asking agents to do. The agents who do it consistently are the ones who get paid on time, every time, without the follow-up calls.
