For thousands of Indian nationals in Dubai, the Dubai Land Department brought out an initiative in July that offers them a flexible payment arrangement for renting houses and apartments. The scheme allows residents to pay rent in flexible monthly cheques, which will help tenants avoid borrowing money to pay their rent.
This will allow tenants to choose from a range of payment schedules, including monthly, quarterly and semi-annual instalments. This will, however, depend on the property and landlord participating in the programme.
The initiative also introduces several additional concessions, including grace periods, revised payment schedules and promotional offers, depending on the property owner or management company. Tenants can also use different payment options, including credit cards, debit cards and traditional cheques.
As many as 11 UAE-based developers, including Wasl Properties, Rocky Real Estate, Deyaar Properties, Dubai World Real Estate, Modern Real Estate, and others, have partnered with DLD for this initiative, according to Khaleej Times.
Many believe the introduction of the scheme will ease the pressure on tenants to take personal loans or credit cards to cough up the huge amount.
“Many were quietly funding that cheque through personal loans or credit cards at interest, effectively paying a premium to live within their means,” said Rohit Bachani, co-founder of Merlin Real Estate, told Khaleej Times. He added that with the scheme, Flexi Rent can spread the annual rent across monthly, quarterly or semi-annual instalments, and the total payable does not change – a tenant paying monthly pays exactly what they would have paid on two or four cheques.
