Off-plan assignment before handover

What changes hands is not the apartment but your position in the contract with the developer: the buyer steps into your place and continues on the same payment schedule. The apartment does not physically exist yet, there is no title, there is a preliminary contract registered in the Oqood system. Which is why the deal runs through the developer rather than between two owners: without their consent the assignment is not registered.

The threshold is set by the developer and written into your contract. It is usually a share of the price paid — often around 30–40%, though both higher and lower occur. Until it is reached, the interest cannot be sold at all. This is the first thing to read for anyone buying off-plan precisely in order to exit before handover: a strategy not supported by a clause in the contract is not a strategy.

Three items. The developer’s assignment permission — a fixed fee, from a few thousand dirhams at many companies; some charge a percentage instead, which is worth checking in advance. The Land Department fee of 4%, paid by the new buyer on the new price. Plus a broker’s commission if you sell through one. Who pays what is a matter of agreement, and it is put in writing before any deposit changes hands.

Competing with the developer. You are selling the same apartment in the same building that they are — except they have a payment plan, promotions and a sales floor, and you do not. If unsold units remain in the scheme when you want out, your buyer will almost always take the developer’s. Assignments work where the developer’s inventory has run out, and fail where construction is under way and the price list is still open.

The final payment still falls due, and it has to be met. That is the other side of back-loaded plans: the less you pay during construction, the better the theoretical assignment looks and the more painful the scenario where it does not occur. Converting the balance to a mortgage is usually possible, but it is a decision for the beginning — banks look at the property, the developer and your income, and a refusal at that moment means a forced sale at whatever price is offered.

The UAE levies no capital gains tax on an individual, and a sale at a profit is not taxed here. A liability may arise in your country of tax residence — a separate question answered in that jurisdiction rather than in Dubai. Distinct from tax, an obligation to declare foreign assets and accounts exists in some jurisdictions regardless.