Rental Dispute

A rental dispute is any conflict between landlord and tenant arising from a tenancy — unpaid rent, contested increases, deposit deductions, maintenance failures, eviction, or refusal to renew. In Dubai these cases go to the Rental Disputes Centre (RDC), the specialised judicial arm attached to the Land Department, rather than the ordinary civil courts; other emirates have their own rent dispute committees. The RDC process is comparatively fast and structured: filing requires the Ejari-registered contract and supporting documents, a mandatory mediation or settlement stage precedes adjudication, first-instance judgments issue quickly, and appeal is available above a value threshold. Filing fees are calculated as a percentage of the annual rent or claim value. Practical success usually depends less on advocacy than on paperwork: the registered contract, written notices served on time and through provable channels, payment records, and photographic evidence. Most tenancy entries in this dictionary — Ejari, the 90-day notice, eviction notice, deposit — converge here when things go wrong.