Imran Haroon & Zeeshan Haroon and Iconic Vista Real Estate Development: buying with a partner

Buying jointly — with a spouse, a sibling, a friend or a business partner — is straightforward to arrange and can be very difficult to unwind. The time to deal with that is before the purchase, when everyone is agreeable.

How joint ownership is recorded

• Shares appear on the title deed. Ownership can be split in whatever proportions the parties agree, and those proportions are what the register reflects.
• Unequal contributions should be unequal shares. If one party funds seventy per cent, a fifty-fifty title creates a gift and a future argument. Record it as it is.
• Do not assume survivorship. The idea that a co-owner automatically inherits the other's share on death is a feature of some legal systems and not a universal one. Deal with succession explicitly.

What an agreement between owners should settle

None of this is exotic and all of it is cheap to document now and expensive to litigate later:

• Who pays what, and what happens if one party cannot pay their share of a service charge, a levy or a mortgage instalment.
• Who decides — letting or leaving empty, choosing an agent, accepting a rent, approving a major repair.
• How income is split, and how expenses are netted before splitting.
• How one party exits. The critical clause: a right of first refusal for the other owner, a valuation mechanism, and a timeframe.
• What happens on deadlock, on death, on divorce, or on one party's insolvency.
• Whether the property may be mortgaged, and by whose agreement.

The practical failure mode

It is almost never a dispute about the property. It is that one owner's circumstances change — a move, a divorce, a business need — and they want their money out while the other does not want to sell. Without an exit mechanism the only route is a forced sale, which takes time and produces a poor price for both. A one-page valuation-and-first-refusal clause prevents the whole scenario.

What to check

• The share split on the deed, matching the actual contributions.
• A written agreement between owners, drafted before purchase.
• Succession, addressed separately — a registered will for UAE assets rather than an assumption.
• Mortgage implications: lenders assess all owners, and one party's position can constrain the borrowing.
• Who is named on the tenancy and who receives the rent, agreed in advance.

Take qualified local legal advice on the agreement and on succession. Rules differ from those in most buyers' home countries.