The Dubai Land Department is creating a ‘smart’ digitised platform that will eliminate the need for paper documentation of sales and rental transactions and other conveyancing by 2020, it said on Monday.
“By removing many traditional limitations in the real estate transaction process, the smart real estate system allows landlords to trade and sell their properties anytime and from anywhere in the world,” said DLD director general Sultan bin Mejren in a statement.
The platform, called Real Estate Self Transaction, or ‘REST’, is part of the government’s Dubai 10x initiative, overseen by think tank Dubai Future Foundation. It aims to place Dubai government entities 10 years ahead of the rest of the world in all sectors, including real estate, transport, public services, banking and more.
It is also a key plank of the emirate’s plans to advance its digital economy, make public bodies more efficient, and further diversify the UAE economy away from oil. Dubai 10x was unveiled at the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier this year.
DLD’s platform, which is intended to be fully operational by the first quarter of 2020, aims to enable “the complete digital management of real estate transactions, eliminating paper documents and reducing brokerage procedures”, the department said.
It will cover property-specific transactions such as buying and selling, as well as real estate market services including mortgages, by linking the property owner directly to the bank through a smart application. Through the system, the bank could offer direct mortgage services, deposit the mortgage amount in the client’s account, or decommission the mortgage directly in the case of sale and purchase procedures.
Neither parties will need to be physically present as requisite data on the property asset will be stored online, DLD added.
[“Source-thenational”]