The cheque you will never see coming
Picture the moment. Form F is signed. The buyer and seller are shaking hands in the trustee office corridor. The Trakheesi permit is valid, the NOC is clean, and the title deed will print in twenty minutes. You have worked this deal for six weeks — viewings, a counter-offer that nearly killed it, a mortgage condition that had to be renegotiated. The commission cheque was collected at the MOU signing, as it should be.
Then you get a message from the co-broking agency on the other side.
They want to talk about the split.
Not the split you discussed on the phone three weeks ago, the one you wrote in a WhatsApp message that the other agent read and never formally confirmed. They want to talk about a different split. Their director has decided the referral they sent you is worth more than 30%. They are not aggressive about it. They are just — slow. Slow to agree, slow to sign anything, slow to release your share. And you realise, standing in a trustee office corridor with a completed deal behind you, that you have no signed document to stand on.
That is not bad luck. That is a deal you should have turned down before it started, or restructured before the client paid.
This article is about recognising those deals at the front end, not nursing the wound at the back end.
Why “any deal” is not a strategy
The Dubai market moves fast, and there is genuine pressure on agents to say yes to everything. A warm lead feels precious. A co-broke invitation from a larger agency feels like access. A client who says they want to move quickly feels like money in the bank.
But every deal you take carries a cost structure you are agreeing to implicitly, even when you have agreed to nothing explicitly. Time is the most obvious cost. Legal exposure is the least discussed. And the commission risk — the probability that you will do the work and not get fully paid — is the one that most agents refuse to calculate in advance.
Disputes over commission are among the most common real estate complaints in Dubai. A typical scenario: a buyer or tenant refuses to pay after the deal closes — the agent showed the property, facilitated the deal, but the client claims no written agreement existed. That scenario plays out on the client side. But an equally damaging version plays out between agents when a co-broke split was never documented before the transaction closed.
The deals worth turning down are not always obvious losers at the outset. Some look like strong business. The problems are structural, and they are predictable — which means you can screen for them.
The six deal types that quietly bleed you
1. The co-broke with no signed Form I
When two agents work together on one deal — one representing the buyer, the other the seller — Dubai requires them to use an agent-to-agent agreement called Form I. This form ensures both agents get their fair share of the commission.
That is the framework. The reality is that Form I is skipped more often than agents admit, particularly when the co-broke relationship is new and both sides want to appear collegial. The pitch is usually: let’s get the deal done first, we’ll sort the paperwork after. That is exactly backwards, and experienced agents know it.
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. This prevents the informal arrangements that create disputes in less regulated markets and gives both parties a documented, enforceable position.
If the other agency will not sign a Form I before your client views the property, that is information. It tells you one of two things: they are disorganised, or they intend to renegotiate the split once the deal has closed and your leverage has expired. Neither of those is a situation you want to be in on a transaction worth six weeks of your time.
The rule is simple: no signed Form I, no co-broke. Full stop.
2. The shared listing with no exclusive mandate
A property listed on multiple portals by multiple agencies is not necessarily a bad listing to work. But before you invest serious hours in a buyer who wants that unit, ask yourself one question: if this deal closes through you, is it documented anywhere that you were the effective cause of sale?
Dubai allows only up to three agents to list the same property at the same time. This rule prevents multiple agents from claiming commission on the same transaction. The regulation exists precisely because without it, commission disputes over shared listings become routine. But the cap on concurrent agents does not guarantee that any one of them will be paid if the seller decides to argue about who genuinely introduced the buyer.
If you are working a buyer on a non-exclusive listing, document every viewing. Get a Form B signed with your client before you show them anything. RERA expects all commission arrangements to be documented in Form A or Form B. If a commission dispute arises, RERA’s dispute resolution handles the case. Having a written agreement is essential to win any dispute. Your Form B is your proof of relationship. Without it, you are relying on goodwill — and goodwill dissolves the moment money is on the table.
The deal to be cautious about is the one where you have a buyer, the seller has three agents on the listing, none of them are cooperating on split documentation, and everyone is racing to claim the introduction. That race typically ends with one cheque and three arguments.
3. The deal where the split conversation is always “after”
You will know this one. You reach out to the listing agency about a co-broke opportunity. They are enthusiastic. They confirm the property, arrange access, and signal they are happy to work together. But every time you try to confirm the split percentage and get it in writing, the conversation slides: “Let’s talk after the viewing.” “Let’s confirm once we have an offer.” “Let’s get the client committed first.”
This is a pattern, not a series of coincidences. Commission disputes are fact-specific — who introduced whom, what was signed, what was paid. An agency that keeps deferring the documentation conversation is an agency that is keeping its options open. Once your client is emotionally committed to the unit, your leverage to negotiate a fair split is gone. They know that.
The correct response is to stop the deal, not accelerate it. A ten-minute conversation about the split percentage and a Form I signature is not an obstacle to closing. If the other agency treats it as one, they are telling you how the post-closing conversation will go.
4. The off-plan deal where the developer’s commission schedule is unclear
When buying off-plan directly from developers, agency commissions usually range from 2% to 8%, but developers typically pay the fee. That means buyers often pay zero brokerage commission in these transactions. For the agent, this is a structural difference from a resale: your client is not your payer. The developer is. And developers control their own payment timelines.
Off-plan commissions in Dubai are typically paid in tranches linked to project milestones — a portion on booking, further amounts as construction milestones are reached, sometimes a final tranche only at handover. The relevant protection for buyers purchasing off-plan is Dubai’s regulated statutory escrow account framework, which requires developers to deposit buyer payments into a dedicated account supervised by the DLD — this is the legal mechanism that protects purchaser funds through the construction cycle. That is a buyer protection, not a commission protection. Your commission timeline is a separate matter governed entirely by your agreement with the developer.
Before you spend time placing a client into a specific project, understand what the commission schedule actually says. Is it milestone-linked? Which milestones? What happens if the project is delayed? What is the agency’s history of actually releasing agent payments on time? These are due-diligence questions that experienced agents ask before committing to a launch, not after a client has signed an SPA.
The deal to think twice about is the one where the developer’s commission schedule is verbal, vague, or tied to milestones that have historically slipped. Taking a deal where your fee is theoretically 5% of a large SPA but the last tranche only pays at handover of a project still two years from completion is not a bad deal on paper. It may be a three-year collection exercise in practice.
5. The rental where commission payment method is left informal
Commission is due when the Ejari-registered tenancy contract is signed and the security deposit and first cheque are handed over. That moment is the clearest commission trigger in Dubai real estate — cleaner than the MOU on a resale, simpler than a developer milestone schedule. The money is moving, the agreement is being formalised, and the Ejari registration locks in the tenancy.
But the rental deal that causes problems is the one where the commission method is left ambiguous. The client pays multiple post-dated cheques for rent. They hand over a security deposit. And then the commission — your 5% plus the VAT on it — becomes a separate conversation that the landlord or the tenant starts treating as negotiable after the fact.
When it comes time to pay commission, ensure payments go through proper banking channels with clear documentation. Request a receipt or invoice that shows the amount, what it covers, and VAT details. That is advice for clients, but it cuts both ways. If your commission is not specified on the tenancy agreement — the amount, who pays it, when — then you are relying on an informal understanding with someone who just handed over a large security deposit and is now thinking about how to reduce their moving costs.
Get the commission amount and the payer confirmed in writing before you arrange any viewings. If a prospective landlord or tenant balks at putting the 5% figure in writing before you start work, that is the market telling you something.
6. The deal where your split comes from a counterpart — not from the client
This is the structural problem that underlies a number of the scenarios above, and it is worth naming directly. In many co-broke arrangements in Dubai, the client pays the commission to one brokerage, and that brokerage then pays the other agency its share. When a deal closes, the total commission goes first to the brokerage. The agent then receives their split — a percentage of that commission agreed upon at the start of their arrangement.
When that structure operates inside a single brokerage, it is largely administrative. When it operates between two independent agencies, it creates a window of vulnerability. The paying agency now controls both the timing and, in practice, the amount — unless the split is documented in a Form I and both parties have clarity on when payment must be made.
Commission disputes are fact-specific — who introduced whom, what was signed, what was paid. If you are the receiving agency and your split depends on the goodwill of the paying agency, you have taken on credit risk without pricing it. The way to remove that risk is to ensure the split agreement is in writing before the client pays anyone — not after.
What the paperwork actually protects
There is a tendency among experienced agents to think of RERA forms as compliance theatre — paperwork that exists to satisfy regulators and occasionally wins disputes in extreme cases. That is a damaging misunderstanding.
RERA sets guidelines for brokerage activities, including licensing real estate agencies and professionals, enforcing compliance, regulating real estate marketing, providing a framework for property development and sales, and resolving disputes between parties involved in real estate transactions. The forms — Form A for the seller-agent relationship, Form B for the buyer-agent relationship, Form I for agent-to-agent arrangements — are the mechanism through which that dispute resolution framework becomes available to you.
Without the signed document, you are not just in a weak position at RERA. You are in no position at all. 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. “Defaulting to the standard rate” on a co-broke split that was verbally agreed at 50/50 but was handled by a larger agency that now claims it should be 70/30 in their favour is not a satisfactory resolution when you have already done the work.
Form I in particular is the document that agents most routinely skip and most bitterly regret skipping. It is not complicated. It records the percentage split, which agency receives what, and is signed by both agencies before any commission changes hands. When multiple agents are involved in a single listing, the commission is typically split among them. This can complicate the transaction, so clear agreements should be in place from the start. The paperwork is not bureaucracy. It is your contract with the person who owes you money.
The VAT question that catches agents out
A separate but related issue: in co-broke arrangements where one agency collects the total commission and then pays the other their share, VAT complicates the picture in ways that are often not discussed until there is a problem.
Value Added Tax of 5% applies to real estate agent commissions in Dubai. This is a federal tax introduced in the UAE in 2018, and it applies to most professional services including real estate brokerage. Each registered brokerage is responsible for issuing a VAT-compliant invoice. On a standard 2% sales commission, the effective rate is 2.1% including VAT. Agents should provide VAT-compliant invoices showing the commission and VAT amounts separately.
When two agencies are splitting a commission, the question of how VAT is handled between them — who invoices whom, which entity accounts for which portion — matters both for compliance and for the actual dirham amount that lands in your account. If the split agreement is only verbal, the VAT mechanics are also unresolved. That is not a tax problem for the distant future. It is a practical problem the moment you try to issue a compliant invoice for your share.
Agree the split. Agree the gross amount including VAT. Agree who invoices whom. Get all of that in writing before the client pays.
The pattern behind the bad deals
Looking across the six categories above, the same structural weakness appears in every one: the commission arrangement between agencies, or between agency and client, was not finalised and signed before the client’s money moved.
This is the moment when your leverage is highest. The client wants the deal. Both agencies want the commission. The seller wants to transact. Everyone at the table has an incentive to agree on the mechanics of who gets paid, how much, and when. Once the client has paid and the transfer has registered, that collective incentive evaporates. The paying party — whether a client, a co-broke agency, or a developer — now has an incentive to delay, minimise, or dispute.
Common dispute scenarios include: a buyer or tenant refusing to pay after the deal closes, claiming no written agreement existed; an agent claiming commission on a deal they did not facilitate; and a seller switching agents mid-transaction — with the original agent claiming commission they can no longer easily enforce. Each of these is a version of the same problem: the agreement was soft when it needed to be hard.
The deals worth turning down are the ones where getting the agreement hard — Form I signed, split confirmed in writing, commission method agreed, VAT treatment clear — is being resisted or deferred before the work begins. Not after. Not at the MOU. Before.
Turning deals down is a skill, not a failure
There is a version of this conversation that sounds like risk avoidance — that turning deals down is the cautious, defensive choice. It is not. It is the productive choice.
Every hour you spend chasing payment on a deal that was structurally broken from the start is an hour you are not spending on a new listing, a new buyer, or a relationship that will generate clean business. What is not negotiable is the obligation to pay commission once you have signed a representation agreement and the agent has fulfilled their obligations. Disputes over commission that was agreed in writing and earned through genuine agency work rarely end well for the party trying to avoid paying. The implication runs the other way too: if the commission was not agreed in writing, the dispute rarely ends well for the agent either.
Screening deals at the front end — asking for the Form I before you arrange viewings, asking for the split in writing before you commit your buyer, confirming the developer commission schedule before you launch a campaign — is not being difficult. It is being professional. The agencies that resist these requests are the ones that rely on the information asymmetry to manage their own costs at your expense.
The principle that removes the friction
There is a state in which a co-broke deal creates no post-closing disputes, no chasing, no leverage games. That state has one defining characteristic: every party’s share of the commission is agreed, documented, and paid at the same moment the client’s payment clears — not sequentially, not in tranches at the discretion of whoever holds the money first, but simultaneously.
When the split is signed before the client pays, and when every party receives their portion at the same time the client’s commission lands, the window for dispute simply does not open. There is no gap between “deal closed” and “money received” where leverage can be applied, where payment can be delayed, or where the split can be quietly renegotiated by the party holding the total commission.
The entire architecture of RERA’s agent-to-agent documentation — Form I, Form A, Form B — points toward this outcome. The forms exist to create enforceable agreements before money moves. They do not, on their own, guarantee simultaneous payment. That requires an additional structural commitment: not just that the split is agreed, but that the mechanism of payment between agencies is set up to pay everyone at once rather than routing everything through a single gatekeeper agency first.
This is the outcome to build toward — structurally, in every co-broke arrangement you enter. Not because it is idealistic, but because it is the only configuration in which neither party has an incentive to act against the other after the deal is done.
Agree it. Sign it. Insist it happens before your client pays.
That is not caution. That is how good agents get paid.
