The deal is done. So why hasn’t the other side paid?
Picture the moment. The buyer’s cheque has cleared, the DLD transfer is stamped, everyone is shaking hands in the trustee office. Your side of the deal is finished. You introduced the buyer, managed the viewings, sat through three rounds of price negotiation, chased the NOC, and made sure Form F was signed without a single clause left hanging.
Then you wait for the co-broking agency to pay your agreed share — and the waiting goes on longer than it should.
Or maybe the scenario is reversed. You hold the listing on Form A, the selling agency brought the buyer under a shared-listing arrangement, and now they are telling you the split you discussed over WhatsApp was never really confirmed, and they are only prepared to give you 30 percent rather than the 50 you expected.
This situation plays out across Dubai’s secondary market every week. Commission disputes are fact-specific — who introduced whom, what was signed, what was paid. And in most of those disputes, the single document that would have ended the argument before it started is missing: a written, signed split clause, agreed and executed before the client’s commission cheque landed anywhere.
That clause — specific, dated, and signed by the responsible party at each brokerage — is the subject of this article.
Why Dubai’s deal structure creates the friction in the first place
Most markets have a central multiple listing service that governs co-broking terms. Dubai does not. Trust and accountability between agencies is patchy: who is accountable when a shared deal goes wrong, and what is the recourse? Answers vary from deal to deal, and deals are conducted usually through personal relationships. That is not a criticism of the market — it is just the honest mechanics of how Dubai operates.
The result is that on any given resale deal, the same property can appear on multiple portals under multiple agencies simultaneously. There is no centralised register of who agreed what split with whom, and nothing in the standard RERA forms — Form A, Form B, or Form F — automatically resolves the split between two competing brokerages when they each contributed to the same transaction.
The DLD issues Form F, also known as the Unified Sale Agreement or MOU, as the standard contract that documents the mutually agreed-upon terms between the buyer and seller in a property transaction. It includes the purchase price, the security deposit, the completion date, the broker’s commission, and the obligations of both parties prior to the transfer. What it does not do — because it was never designed to — is govern how two separate brokerages split that commission between themselves. That is a separate relationship, and it needs a separate document.
Form A governs the relationship between the seller and the broker, while Form B governs the relationship between the buyer and the broker. Form A, Form B, and Form F work together as a single contractual framework around a transaction. Form A records the relationship between the seller and the broker, defining the listing terms and the broker’s commission. Form B defines the engagement between the buyer and the broker, typically covering search, viewing, and offer submission.
Notice what is absent from that framework: any document that cements the split between a listing broker and an outside selling broker. That gap is where most disputes are born.
What an agent-to-agent split clause actually needs to say
An agent-to-agent agreement is a formal agreement between two licensed real estate brokers or agencies in Dubai, outlining the terms of collaboration on a shared listing or deal. In practice, it goes by several names — A2A agreement, Form I, inter-agency split letter — but the label matters far less than the content.
A split clause that actually prevents arguments must contain, at minimum:
- The exact split, stated as a percentage or dirham amount. “Roughly half-half” is not a clause. “50% of the total agency commission stated in Form F, being AED [X]” is a clause. Ambiguity about quantum is the most common source of disputes, and it is entirely avoidable.
- The identity of both brokerages by full legal name and ORN. Individual agent names are not sufficient. 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 split agreement must mirror that principle: it binds brokerages, not individuals.
- The trigger event for payment. Is the split payable when Form F is signed, or at DLD transfer? The form should record the agreed percentage, the responsible party, the trigger event for payment (typically Form F execution or DLD transfer), and VAT treatment. Leaving the trigger undefined means both sides can argue about it later.
- VAT treatment. The Dubai Land Department imposes a 5% value-added tax on the commission itself. The split clause must state whether the agreed share is calculated on the pre-VAT or post-VAT commission, and which brokerage holds the VAT obligation on each portion.
- Signatures from an authorised signatory at each brokerage. A WhatsApp message from the listing agent’s personal phone is not the same as a signed commitment from the brokerage principal or compliance officer. If the deal falls apart and you are in a RERA complaint or civil proceeding, the court or regulator will want to see a document that the brokerage itself is bound by. Authorities such as RERA or local courts rely almost entirely on the written terms in the document when a dispute arises. Verbal promises or side explanations carry very little weight once those signatures appear on the page.
Commission outside the standard rate is permissible. What matters is that the figure is recorded clearly. Verbal variations are not enforceable, and disputes invariably default to the written terms.
The moment most agents get this wrong
When two brokers collaborate on a deal, the commission structure must be agreed upon in advance. Without a clear agent-to-agent agreement, many agents end up in costly disputes or losing their commission entirely.
The failure almost always happens at the same point: the handshake stage. Two agencies agree to work together on a viewing, the buyer falls in love with the property on a Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning everyone is excited and moving fast. The split conversation happens on a call or in a group chat, a number is mentioned, and both sides assume they’re aligned. Nobody stops to put it in writing because the deal feels done and stopping to formalise a split feels like a bureaucratic slowdown at the worst possible moment.
Then the deal closes, and the memory of what was agreed turns out to be different on each side. Or one agency’s account department, who was not on the call, has a different understanding of what “standard split” means. Or the listing agency decides that because the buyer asked for a price reduction that came out of their margin, the split should be renegotiated now.
Don’t wait until the deal is about to close. Discuss the commission at the start of the collaboration. Not at the start of transfer week. Not when Form F is being prepared. At the start — before the first viewing is confirmed, before a single document is shared.
Any time two brokers collaborate on a listing or share client information, it’s best practice to have an A2A in place before sharing full details. This avoids ambiguity and ensures both parties are legally protected.
Where the money actually sits — and why that matters
To understand why the split clause must exist before the client pays, it helps to trace where the commission physically goes on a typical secondary market deal.
The buyer pays their 2% commission (plus 5% VAT on that fee) to the brokerage identified on Form F. That payment goes to the brokerage — not to the individual agent, and not to the other agency. Brokerage laws in Dubai mandate that commission must be tied to a written agreement, often included in the Memorandum of Understanding. Once conditions of the contract are met, the commission becomes payable.
Once the receiving brokerage holds the full commission pool, it has to release the co-broke portion to the other agency. And this is the moment when, without a prior written agreement, everything can stall. The receiving brokerage’s management may dispute the split. Their accounts department may hold the payment while “reviewing.” The individual listing agent who verbally agreed to the split may no longer be at the firm by the time transfer day comes. There is no mechanism that automatically forces payment to the other side.
Payment timing is a further complication: even when commission is “earned” at MOU, payment may be structured as a portion at MOU and the remainder at transfer. Without a written split clause that mirrors this timing, the co-broke agency can be left waiting for two separate tranches of payment with no written basis for either.
Off-plan is structurally different. On most primary off-plan launches the developer pays the broker, so buyers usually pay no commission directly unless agreed in writing. The developer’s commission department pays the registered brokerage according to their own internal schedule — often on a milestone or handover basis. If an outside broker introduced the buyer, the split between the developer’s preferred broker and the introducing broker is again entirely dependent on a written agreement reached before the deal was booked. Without one, the introducing broker is relying on goodwill, and goodwill is not enforceable.
For rental transactions, the principle is identical. The client pays one cheque, usually to the agency that prepared the Ejari paperwork. If two agencies were involved — one that held the landlord mandate, one that brought the tenant — the split needs to be in writing before that cheque is handed over. The Rental Disputes Centre handles landlord-tenant disputes, but the Dubai Land Department regulates registered brokers and handles complaints about broker conduct — this is the route for fee disputes with a brokerage. Even with that route available, a complaint process is slow, expensive in management time, and uncertain. A signed split clause costs thirty minutes to prepare and makes the complaint unnecessary.
What “before the client pays” actually means in practice
There is a common misunderstanding about when “before” is. Many agents think the split needs to be agreed before transfer day, or before Form F is signed. That is better than nothing, but it is not early enough.
The correct moment is before the property is shown to the client under a co-broking arrangement. Here is why: once a viewing happens and the buyer falls in love with a unit, the power balance shifts. The agency with the motivated buyer now has leverage in the split negotiation that it did not have at the start. The listing agency can drag its feet or offer an unreasonably low split, knowing that the selling agency’s buyer needs the property. Both sides are now negotiating under pressure rather than in a calm, professional pre-deal conversation.
Every split should be spelled out in writing to avoid disputes. The sequence that removes nearly all future friction is:
- Listing agency and selling agency agree the split in percentage terms before any viewing is confirmed.
- Both agencies sign the A2A / split agreement. Both brokerages — identified by legal name and ORN — are parties to that document.
- The trigger event, payment method, and VAT treatment are stated explicitly.
- Only after that document exists does the viewing happen, Form F get prepared, and the deal proceed.
This is not an administrative burden. A split letter covers one page. The time it takes to draft and sign it is measured in minutes. The time it takes to resolve a dispute without one is measured in months.
The verbal agreement trap — and why WhatsApp messages are not a fix
Dubai’s agent community is relationship-driven, and that is genuinely one of the market’s strengths. Deals happen because people trust each other. But the relationship-driven culture produces one consistent vulnerability: the belief that a verbal agreement between people who know each other does not need to be written down.
Verbal agreements are extremely difficult to enforce in Dubai. This is not a technicality. It is the practical reality of how RERA complaints work and how Dubai Courts evaluate evidence. If there is no signed document, the regulator or court has to weigh one person’s account against another’s. That process takes time, costs money in management attention and sometimes legal fees, and produces an outcome that neither side fully controls.
WhatsApp is better than nothing, in the sense that a message thread with a specific percentage stated can be presented as evidence of intent. But it is significantly weaker than a signed agreement because: the message may not come from an authorised signatory; it can be taken out of context; and the agency itself — as a legal entity — is not a party to a chat thread between two individual agents.
Proper documentation and proof of communication are essential in these cases. That documentation hierarchy, from weakest to strongest, runs: verbal — WhatsApp — email — signed letter — signed brokerage agreement. Only the last one reliably ends the argument.
The secondary market: who owns the split conversation?
In Dubai, there is no official law dictating the exact split for agent-to-agent commissions. The widely understood market convention on secondary sales is a 50/50 split of total brokerage commission between the listing and selling agencies — but conventions are not contracts. Most Dubai brokerages use a 70/30 split when one agent supplies the buyer and another lists the property in some configurations, particularly where an exclusive mandate is held. The point is not which split is “correct” — it is that the correct split is whichever one both parties agreed to in writing.
RERA does not fix commission rates by law. Parties are free to agree on different rates. That freedom is commercially useful, but it also means there is no default backstop: if you did not agree a rate in writing, you will be arguing about the “market standard” while the other side has a different view of what that standard is.
The listing agency generally has a stronger starting position in the split negotiation because they hold the formal relationship with the seller through Form A. When multiple agents are involved in the same listing, commissions are split between them according to signed RERA forms. This ensures transparency and avoids disputes. But Form A governs the seller-to-listing-broker relationship. It says nothing about how the listing broker shares that fee with a co-broking agency. That is the gap. Fill it with a separate, signed split agreement.
The off-plan dimension: developer commission and the split clock
Off-plan introduces a timing wrinkle that catches agents by surprise. The developer pays the introducing brokerage — sometimes at booking, sometimes on a milestone schedule, sometimes at handover, depending on the developer’s commission terms. The introducing brokerage may itself have been introduced to the deal by an outside agent or a sub-referring broker.
If the split between the developer’s preferred broker and the sub-referring broker was not committed to in writing at the time of booking, the sub-referring broker is at the mercy of whatever the receiving brokerage decides to honour when the commission eventually arrives. Commission structures vary by developer and project, and payment can come months or years after the booking. Without a signed split agreement dated to the booking, the sub-referring broker has no enforceable claim to a specific share of a payment that arrives long after everyone has moved on.
The regulated escrow mechanism in off-plan — the legally mandated account under Dubai’s off-plan escrow law into which buyers’ payments flow — protects buyer funds and ensures construction milestones are met. Escrow accounts in Dubai protect off-plan property payments and ensure funds are released only as construction progresses; the DLD and RERA require the use of escrow accounts for off-plan property transactions. That protection is for buyers, not for the co-broking agent. No part of that regulated framework ensures the second agency receives its split. That is entirely a matter of private written agreement between the brokerages involved.
What happens when a dispute reaches the regulator
If direct resolution fails, RERA provides a formal complaint mechanism for disputes involving registered agents. You can file a complaint through official DLD channels. RERA has the authority to investigate complaints, mediate disputes, and take enforcement action against agents who violate regulations.
Having proper documentation of your agency agreement and any communications makes your case much stronger. That documentation requirement works both ways: the agency being pursued for non-payment will also present whatever they have. If they have a WhatsApp message that could be read to support their version, you need something stronger to rebut it.
For significant disputes involving substantial sums, you may need to pursue resolution through Dubai Courts or the DIFC Courts. Legal action is typically a last resort due to the time and cost involved.
The time and cost of a formal dispute is the real price of not having a split clause. The calculation is straightforward: a disputed AED 30,000 co-broke fee on a mid-market apartment can consume hours of management time, RERA complaint filings, and potentially legal fees that collectively outstrip the disputed amount — while destroying a working relationship with a co-broking agency that could have referred you a dozen more deals.
None of that happens when both sides signed a clear split clause before the viewing.
The payment sequencing argument: why simultaneous is the gold standard
Even when a split clause exists, payment can still be delayed if the process is sequential. Sequential means: the client pays the holding brokerage first, then the holding brokerage pays the co-broking agency later — sometimes much later, depending on their internal accounts cycle, management approvals, or how organised their finance team is.
The argument for simultaneous payment — where both parties receive what they are owed at the same time, from the same commission event — is not complicated. It eliminates the float period during which one brokerage holds the other brokerage’s money. It eliminates the possibility that the holding brokerage’s financial situation changes between receipt and disbursement. It eliminates the follow-up calls, the chasing emails, the uncertain wait.
The mechanism for simultaneous payment needs to be written into the split agreement itself. It is not enough to agree the percentage; the agreement should specify that the co-broke portion is remitted within a defined number of business days of receipt, ideally with a specific payment method stated. Or, where the deal structure allows it, that both brokerages receive their shares directly from the paying party at the moment of transaction — removing the holding period entirely.
Agents are required under RERA rules to disclose their commission arrangement to all parties. That transparency obligation is a hook: if the split is disclosed to both buyer and seller in the Form F process, both sides of the split have a basis to expect payment on the same terms and timeline as the overall commission. Use that.
The one principle that ties it together
Commission disputes in Dubai’s co-broking market are not really about greed or bad faith — most of the time. They are about ambiguity: two professionals who had a different mental model of what was agreed, and no shared written record to resolve it.
The clause that prevents most later arguments is not exotic. It is not a legal innovation. It is simply a written, signed confirmation — made between the relevant brokerages, before the client’s money moves — that states exactly what each party will receive, from whom, and when.
Every element of the friction that causes delayed payment, stalled splits, and escalated disputes can be traced back to the absence of that document at the start. And every element of it disappears when the document exists.
The professionals who earn the most and wait the least are not the ones who close the most deals. They are the ones who have learned to stop the deal moving forward — even for thirty minutes, even when everyone is excited, even when the buyer is ready to sign — until the split is on paper and both brokerages have signed it. That pause is not a slowdown. It is the fastest path to getting paid.
