The deal is done. Now the argument starts.
Picture the scene. Two agents have worked a secondary-market sale for six weeks. The buyer’s agent found the client; the listing agent held the mandate and handled the viewings. They shook hands on a 50/50 split somewhere in week two, in a WhatsApp voice note, because both were moving fast and neither wanted to slow things down. Form F is signed. The deposit cheque is with the listing agency. The NOC is in progress. On paper, this is a closed deal.
Then the listing agency’s accounts team processes the commission and sends the buyer’s agent a cheque that reflects a 60/40 split, not the 50/50 that was agreed. The explanation is polite but firm: “That’s our standard co-broke structure.” The buyer’s agent has a voice note, a few WhatsApp messages, and no signed Form I. The listing agency has the client relationship, the mandate, and the commission cheque already inside their office. The dispute that follows will consume more energy than the deal itself.
This is not an unusual story. It plays out constantly in Dubai, across sales and rentals, secondary market and off-plan referrals. It is not usually the result of bad faith. It is the result of a process that was improvised in the middle and left the critical agreement — the split, the amount, the timing of payment — sitting in someone’s memory rather than on a signed document.
The question is not whether agents know they should formalise things. They do. The question is whether they build the process that actually makes formalisation happen, every time, before the client pays.
What “improvised” actually looks like in a Dubai deal
The word improvised can sound dramatic. In practice it describes something more mundane: a sequence of decisions made on the fly, each of which feels reasonable in isolation but which creates a structural problem by the time the deal reaches completion.
Here is what improvised looks like across the deal types you work every day.
On a secondary-market co-broke deal, improvised means the commission split is discussed verbally — sometimes via message, sometimes during a walkthrough — but Form I is not raised until one party asks about it near transfer. By then, one agency has the seller’s Form A, the other has the buyer’s Form B, and both believe they are owed a specific cut. Form I is the agent-to-agent agreement that governs the commission split and professional conduct when two brokers collaborate; according to practitioners, skipping it is the leading cause of commission disputes in Dubai.
On a rental with an Ejari registration, improvised means the tenant’s commission cheque is written to one agency and the co-broker who found the tenant is waiting for a bank transfer that will arrive “after accounts processes it.” The agency commission on a rental is typically 5% of annual rent, paid once upon contract signing — meaning the money arrives at the listing agency in one lump, and any onward payment to a co-broker depends entirely on that agency choosing to act promptly and in the amount agreed.
On an off-plan referral, improvised means the referring agent has introduced a client to a developer’s sales team on the basis of a conversation and a business card handover. The developer pays commission to the registered agency, not to individuals, and whether the referring agent’s brokerage honours its internal share commitment depends on what was agreed, in what form, and whether there is anything in writing.
In every case, the friction point is the same: the split was agreed loosely, proven poorly, and paid in a sequence that left one party dependent on the other’s goodwill after the client had already handed over money.
The forms that already exist — and the gap they still leave
Dubai’s regulatory framework gives agents better documentation infrastructure than most markets in the region. Real estate brokerage is a regulated activity; practising agents must be registered with RERA and hold a broker card with a broker registration number. The forms system built around that registration creates a paper trail for every client relationship.
Commission rates are negotiable but must be clearly defined in the Form A (Seller Agreement) and Form B (Buyer Agreement) contracts. Form F is a standardised sales contract created by RERA that was introduced to bring uniformity and transparency to property resale transactions across the emirate. It serves as the definitive agreement between buyer and seller, capturing every material term of the deal: property details, agreed price, payment schedule, transfer timeline, penalty clauses, and the agent’s commission.
When two agents collaborate, they can sign a Form I — a broker-to-broker agreement that outlines how they will split responsibilities and commission. Key aspects of Form I include the commission split between listing and buyer’s agent, a requirement that both agents adhere to RERA’s code of ethics, and a definition of which agent is responsible for particular tasks, such as coordinating with the developer or attending the final transfer at the trustee office.
By having a signed Form I, both agents are legally bound to cooperate in the best interest of their clients, preventing potential client poaching and disputes over fees.
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.
So the infrastructure is there. The gap is not regulatory. The gap is behavioural.
Form I exists. Agents know it exists. And yet in a significant share of co-broke deals, it is either not prepared until late in the transaction, or it is prepared with a split percentage that does not match what was originally discussed, or it is simply not prepared at all. The reason is not ignorance; it is pressure. When the buyer wants to move fast, when the listing agent is juggling three other deals, when raising Form I feels like introducing friction into a conversation that is flowing — the path of least resistance is to defer it. And deferring it means that the only record of what was agreed is a WhatsApp message that neither party can locate by the time the deal completes.
Why payment timing is as important as the split percentage
Most agents focus their attention on the percentage — who gets 50%, who gets 60%, whether a 30/70 split is justifiable on a particular deal. That is the right conversation to have. But the percentage alone does not prevent the dispute. What prevents the dispute is the percentage, in writing, tied to a payment that happens at the same moment for all parties.
Here is why timing matters so much in the mechanics of a Dubai transaction.
On a secondary-market sale, the commission cheque is typically collected from the buyer at or around the Form F signing, made payable to the brokerage. 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. What happens next — whether and how the co-broker is paid — is an internal process of that brokerage. There is no DLD-mandated mechanism that forces simultaneous disbursement to the second agency. The second agency is dependent on the first acting promptly and correctly.
On a rental deal, the same structure applies. The agency commission — typically 5% of annual rent — is handed over at signing, alongside the cheques. The contract is then registered on Ejari to make the tenancy official. Again, the agent who receives the commission cheque is the one with the money. If a co-broker found the tenant, their share depends on a bank transfer that the first agency needs to initiate.
On off-plan, the position is different again. Developers pay agency commission separately from the buyer’s purchase payments. Under Dubai’s escrow law, developers must open a dedicated escrow account for each real estate project, and all payments from buyers must be deposited into this account — but that escrow mechanism protects the buyer’s purchase instalments, not the agent’s commission. Commission flows from the developer to the registered agency, on the developer’s timetable, and from there to any co-broker or referring agent on the brokerage’s internal timetable. An agent who referred a client and is waiting for commission from a developer launch is dealing with two separate payment delays: developer processing time, then internal brokerage processing time.
The pattern is consistent. Commission concentrates in one account. Everyone else waits.
Where disputes actually come from
Disputes over commission splits almost never come from genuine disagreement about who did the work. Both agents usually know what happened. They showed up, they worked the deal, they contributed. The dispute comes from something else entirely: the gap between what was discussed and what was documented, combined with the fact that one party has already been paid.
Once the money is sitting in one account, the incentive structure changes. A brokerage that holds the commission cheque has no financial pressure to pay the co-broker promptly or in the exact amount agreed. This is not a statement about ethics — it is a statement about human nature and cash flow. Businesses have expenses. Payroll runs. The co-broker’s share is a liability until it is paid, and liabilities have a way of drifting.
What accelerates a dispute into an irreconcilable one is when the documentation is ambiguous. If Form I was signed with a 50/50 split and the co-broker receives 40%, they have a clear, signed document and a straightforward claim. That dispute is resolvable. If the split was agreed by voice note and WhatsApp message and there is no Form I, the dispute becomes a question of credibility rather than documentation. Agents with less leverage — newer agencies, agents without exclusive mandates, buyer’s agents who brought the client but had no listing relationship — are the ones who typically find themselves in the weaker position.
Complaints about broker conduct can be raised with the DLD/RERA, which handles complaints about unregistered practice, double-dipping, misrepresentation, or fee disputes with a brokerage. But getting to that point means the deal has already produced a damaged professional relationship, a time-consuming process, and often a result that satisfies no one. The professional answer is not to have a better dispute resolution path. It is to build a process that removes the conditions for a dispute to start.
The specific habits that separate professional from improvised
The difference between a professional process and an improvised one is not about using different forms — both agents are using the same RERA forms. It is about when those forms get done, how the split is documented before any money moves, and what gets agreed explicitly rather than assumed.
Raise Form I before the clients meet each other
The moment a co-broke arrangement is established — the moment a buyer’s agent and a listing agent agree to work a deal together — is the moment Form I should be raised. Not after Form F. Not after the offer is accepted. Before the buyers see the property if possible, and certainly before they make an offer.
It is important to ensure Form I reflects everything discussed — property type, location, and price range — so that expectations are aligned from day one. Getting this signed early is not bureaucratic; it is the single action most likely to prevent a commission dispute. It also does something more subtle: it signals to the listing agent that you are running a professional process, which tends to produce more professional conduct in return.
Name the gross commission and the split amount — not just the percentage
A percentage is abstract until a transaction price is agreed. “50/50 on the total commission” needs to sit alongside the actual commission figure expected at the transaction value being worked. If the property is listed at AED 2.5 million and the buyer’s commission is 2% plus 5% VAT, the buyer’s agent’s share of a 50/50 split is a specific number. Write it down. When that number changes because the sale price moves at negotiation, revise the form. The discipline of naming the actual figure makes disagreements about rounding and basis points visible before they become grievances.
Confirm who holds the commission cheque and when it moves
This is the question that improvised processes never ask explicitly. In a co-broke, the commission cheque goes to one agency. That agency owes the other a portion. The professional process names a payment date — not “after accounts processes it” but a specific number of days after receipt of cleared funds. This is a negotiable business term between two agencies. It belongs in writing, alongside the split percentage.
On rental deals, agree co-broke terms before the tenant signs
Ejari is the official rental contract registration system managed by the Dubai Land Department; every rental contract must be registered on Ejari within 30 days of signing, and this registration protects both tenant and landlord and is essential for DEWA accounts and visa renewal. By the time Ejari registration is happening, the deal is done and the commission is in the hands of one agency. The co-broke agreement needs to predate that moment, not follow it.
On off-plan, confirm the developer’s registration requirements immediately
Developers in Dubai pay agency commission to registered agencies, not to individual agents or to agencies not on their approved register. Before any client introduction to a developer’s project, the referring agent needs to confirm that their agency is registered with that developer, that the referral will be formally logged through the developer’s system, and what the split and payment timeline will be. A developer cannot deal with unregistered brokers. If an agent is routing a client through another agency because they are not on the developer’s register, that arrangement must be documented between the agencies before the client is introduced — not after the booking form is signed.
What the VAT position means for your documentation
VAT is a consideration that catches some agents unprepared; agents registered for VAT — which is required once annual earnings exceed the UAE federal threshold — must add 5% VAT to the commission invoice. In a co-broke, the VAT position of each agency is independent. Agency A may be VAT-registered; Agency B may not have crossed the threshold. The invoice that Agency A issues to the client will include VAT. The amount Agency A owes Agency B may or may not include VAT depending on their respective registrations and the nature of the arrangement.
This matters because it affects the actual net amounts each party expects to receive. Getting this wrong — paying the co-broker the gross split without accounting for the VAT element, or shortchanging them because the accounts team deducted the VAT before splitting — is another source of disputes that good documentation prevents. The Form I split should specify whether the percentage applies to the commission exclusive of VAT or inclusive of it.
The off-plan commission gap that no one discusses enough
Off-plan deals have a structural feature that agents sometimes underestimate: the commission is paid by the developer, not the buyer, and it follows a developer-defined schedule that can span months or years tied to payment plan milestones.
When two agents collaborate on an off-plan deal, both agencies may record the referral and the split agreement on day one. But the commission may arrive in tranches — one tranche at booking, one at a construction milestone, one at handover. If the inter-agency agreement only covered the first tranche and was silent on subsequent ones, the co-broker may find themselves chasing payment on milestones two and three with diminishing leverage, because the client relationship has long since moved to the listing agency’s team.
A professional process documents the split across all expected commission tranches, not just the booking fee. It names what happens if a client cancels mid-payment-plan. It names what happens if the developer restructures the commission schedule. These are conversations that experienced agents have. The difference between professional and improvised is whether those conversations produce a signed document or a good-faith expectation.
When the client pays, everyone should be paid
This is the principle that the most competent agents in Dubai work toward, and it is the one that most clearly separates professional process from improvised process.
The client pays once. That payment — whether it is a commission cheque at Form F signing, a rental commission cheque at Ejari, or a developer booking fee — is the moment of maximum leverage for every party. It is the moment when the money exists, when all parties are present or represented, and when the terms of the deal are freshest in everyone’s minds.
A professional process is designed so that the split has been agreed in writing, the amounts are named, and the disbursement happens at that same moment — or within a specified, agreed window tied to that moment. No party leaves the transaction dependent on a future payment that requires the other party to choose to act.
An improvised process leaves at least one party downstream of that moment — waiting, trusting, hoping that the agreed terms will be honoured in the absence of any document that enforces them.
The reason this matters is not philosophical. It is operational. Payment disputes cost time. Time spent chasing a co-broker payment or responding to a complaint is time not spent closing another deal. The agent with a process that pays all parties when the client pays does not lose that time. They move on to the next deal before the previous one has had a chance to become a problem.
The documentation infrastructure to make this happen already exists in Dubai. Form A, Form B, Form I, Form F — the forms system that RERA has built is designed precisely for this. RERA requires brokers to use standardized forms and clearly document commission agreements, which protects all parties and reduces disputes; the DLD manages the registration of property transactions and enforces rules on commissions, ensuring payments are made according to signed contracts.
The agents who use that infrastructure consistently — who raise Form I early, name every figure explicitly, and build inter-agency payment terms into the agreement before the client hands over a dirham — are the ones who get paid on time, every time. Not because they are luckier or more trusted, but because they have removed the conditions under which late payment and non-payment happen.
That is what a professional process looks like. Not more complicated than an improvised one. More decided, and earlier.
