Ask a Lawyer

You have a solid basis to push for a refund of the unused sessions. When you prepaid, the deal was ten sessions at that branch — its location was part of what you bought, as anyone selling salon packages well understands. By closing the branch, the business materially changed the service, and UAE consumer protection rules require providers to deliver services as agreed and give consumers remedies when they do not. Offering a branch across town is an alternative they may propose, but it is not something they can force on you as full performance, particularly when location drove your decision. Practically: write to the company by email, so it is documented, demanding a pro-rata refund for the seven unused sessions, give them a clear deadline of a week or two, and attach your payment receipt and the package terms. If they refuse or stall, file a complaint through Dubai's consumer protection channels under the Department of Economy and Tourism with the same documents — prepaid-package disputes are common, and many resolve at the complaint stage once a regulator is copied in. Keep notes of every visit and every refusal along the way. If the amount at stake justifies it, a licensed UAE lawyer can take the refund claim through the courts for you.

You have some protection, but your position is weaker than a registered tenant's, and much depends on whether the landlord approved the subletting. In Dubai, subletting requires the landlord's written consent; where it exists, you have a recognisable tenancy relationship with the main tenant, and disputes between you go to the Rental Disputes Centre (RDC) like any other rent dispute. Even without Ejari in your name, occupants who can prove they paid rent and lived in the unit have brought claims, so start collecting evidence now: payment receipts or bank transfers, messages about the room, and anything showing your dates of occupancy. A week's notice has no legal basis, and nobody may remove you by force — only a court process can order an eviction. Two risks to keep in mind: if the landlord never consented, the entire sublease can be terminated, and partitioned rooms often breach Dubai Municipality rules, which limits how hard you can push. Try to settle the demand in writing first; if he persists, the RDC is the venue. A licensed tenancy lawyer in Dubai can quickly assess how strong your evidence is before you file anything.

You are broadly right, and the school is on weaker ground than it claims. Education regulators in the UAE treat unpaid fees as a civil debt for the school to recover through proper channels — not as a licence to block a child's education by holding essential documents. In Dubai, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) oversees private schools and takes complaints about withheld transfer certificates; in Abu Dhabi that role sits with ADEK, and elsewhere with the federal education authorities. Your moves, in order: put the fee dispute in writing to the school, stating exactly which term is disputed and why, and pay any portion you do not dispute so the file shows good faith. Demand the transfer certificate in the same letter, noting the new school's enrolment deadline. If the school still refuses, file a complaint with the regulator with the correspondence attached — regulators have intervened in document-withholding cases, and schools tend to move quickly once one is involved. Keep the new school informed in writing so the delay is documented as the school's doing, not yours. The school remains free to pursue the disputed term through the courts, which is where that argument belongs. A UAE lawyer can also put the fee disagreement itself on a proper footing if the school escalates.

A signature mismatch is not treated the same way as bouncing for insufficient funds — and on your facts it should be far less serious. The conduct the law targets is deliberate: intentionally signing a cheque in a way designed to prevent it being paid is an offence, but a signature that has naturally drifted over the years, with the money sitting in the account, is a banking problem rather than a criminal one. Intent is the dividing line, and your account balance on the presentation date is your best evidence of good faith. Fix it practically and fast. Update your specimen signature at the bank so this never repeats, get a bank letter or statement confirming the funds were available and that the return reason was a signature mismatch, and pay the rent immediately by transfer or a reissued cheque. Send the landlord the proof along with the payment — most talk of filing a case evaporates once rent arrives with an innocent explanation attached. If he files something anyway, that paper trail is your defence, and remember unpaid rent has its own consequences at the Rental Disputes Centre, so do not let the dispute delay payment. A licensed UAE lawyer can respond formally if the landlord persists.

Report it to the health regulator for your emirate — in Dubai that is the Dubai Health Authority, in Abu Dhabi the Department of Health, and in the other emirates the Ministry of Health and Prevention. Pharmacies and pharmacists are individually licensed, and a dispensing error of this kind is precisely what those regulators investigate; outcomes can include disciplinary action against both the pharmacist and the pharmacy. Before anything else, preserve the evidence while it still exists: keep the medication and its labelled packaging, the original prescription, the receipt, and photos showing the discrepancy side by side. Take your son to his paediatrician now, even though he seems fine, and ask for the visit notes to record what he was given, at what strength, and for how long — a contemporaneous medical record is the single most valuable document if anything develops later. Then file the complaint in writing with everything attached. On a future claim: yes, one could exist if harm emerges, and it would rest almost entirely on the documentation you create this week, so be thorough now rather than relying on memory later. If symptoms ever do appear, a UAE healthcare lawyer can pick the file up with the evidence you preserved.

It became something you can formally complain about a while ago — two months is well beyond any reasonable window for fines to surface. Traffic fines and Salik charges appear on the official RTA and Dubai Police systems quickly, which is why rental companies normally hold deposits only for a limited period after return; an open-ended hold with no committed date and nothing showing on the systems is not a pending-fines problem, it is your money being kept. Do this: check the plate yourself on the RTA and Dubai Police fine-enquiry services and screenshot the clean result with the date visible. Then send the company a written demand — email, not another phone call — attaching the screenshots, your rental agreement and the vehicle return inspection report, and give them a firm deadline of about a week to refund. If the deadline passes, file a complaint through Dubai's consumer protection channels under the Department of Economy and Tourism; car rental firms are licensed businesses, and regulator complaints get answered in a way phone calls do not. The civil courts remain available if even that fails, though deposit disputes rarely travel that far. A licensed UAE lawyer can send the demand letter for you, which often shakes a deposit loose faster than months of calling.

No — a landlord cannot cut your power or change your locks, whatever the dispute is about. Dubai law does not allow self-help eviction: only the Rental Disputes Centre (RDC) can order a tenant out, and a landlord who disconnects utilities or locks a tenant out of their home exposes himself to liability. Your fastest route back in runs on two tracks. First, report to the police that you have been locked out of your residence with your belongings inside; officers routinely attend to restore access or supervise retrieval, and the report itself becomes valuable evidence. Second, file an urgent application at the RDC seeking restoration of the tenancy and services, plus compensation — the RDC can move quickly where a tenant has effectively been put on the street. Before either step, photograph the changed locks, keep your DEWA records showing the disconnection followed your rent dispute, and note any witnesses such as building security. Do not break back in yourself; let the police or the RDC restore you lawfully, so the wrongdoing stays entirely on his side. If access is not restored within days, a UAE property lawyer can run the urgent application and the compensation claim for you.

Yes — custody and access orders in the UAE are never carved in stone. They remain open to review when circumstances genuinely change, precisely because children's needs and parents' lives move on. The route is a fresh application to the personal status court, asking for the arrangement to be amended and setting out what has changed since the ruling two years ago. The mother's agreement is helpful but not required; the court can amend over her objection if the case is made. What judges actually weigh is the children's best interests, evidenced concretely: your new working hours and what they mean for daily care, the suitability and stability of your living arrangements, the children's ages, schooling and routines, how the current arrangement is failing them in practice, and each parent's capacity and conduct. Vague dissatisfaction loses; specific, documented change wins. So gather proof before filing — an employment letter showing the new hours, the tenancy contract for your home, school records, and concrete examples of where the current schedule breaks down for the children rather than merely inconveniences you. A licensed UAE family lawyer can assess whether your changes meet the threshold judges actually apply, and how to present them, before you commit to filing.

You can almost certainly still bring the licence back, but get the real number before deciding anything. In Dubai, late-renewal fines accumulate on an expired licence over time, so the first step is to request a statement of everything owed from the Department of Economy and Tourism — fines on the licence itself, plus anything attached to the company such as immigration or labour penalties if you sponsored staff. Only with that figure can you compare your options sensibly. Renewal means paying the accumulated fines plus the renewal fee, after which the company continues with its history, name and bank account intact. Cancellation is not a free exit: outstanding fines and liabilities generally must be cleared before a cancellation is accepted, and an abandoned licence can follow you, blocking future company setups or visa applications until the dues are settled. Also ask whether any fine-reduction or waiver initiative is currently running — authorities periodically offer relief schemes for lapsed licences, and timing a renewal to one can change the maths completely. A licensed UAE commercial lawyer can review your statement of dues and tell you which route genuinely costs less in your situation.

The committee is a technical panel, not the final word — think of it as the expert stage your complaint must pass through. Under the UAE's medical liability law, complaints about treatment are referred to a medical liability committee of specialist doctors, which reviews the records, may hear from both sides, and issues a finding on whether malpractice occurred, what caused the harm, and how serious any error was. That finding is the foundation for everything after it: the health authority relies on it for disciplinary action, civil courts lean on it heavily when assessing compensation, and in serious cases it shapes whether the matter goes further. It is not final — either side can challenge the conclusions before a higher appeal committee within a set window, so an unfavourable first finding is not necessarily the end. Compensation itself is decided later, usually by a civil court, using the committee's report as core evidence. It is genuinely worth having representation at this stage, because how the complaint is framed and which records and expert points reach the committee shape the outcome. A UAE medical malpractice lawyer engaged now, rather than after the finding lands, usually puts the eventual claim on much stronger footing.