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The Silly Things People Say

April 17, 2011 12:55 by Eva Fernandes

No? Well how about this news story of a property developer who, despite property prices dropping left, right and center, sometimes as much as 50 percent, decided to be the odd one out and increased service charges for this year by a substantial Dh6 a square foot to Dh18 (as you do). Kipp doesn’t even know where to begin with that one, but we find the response of one owner Elizabeth George to summarize quite what we are thinking. George told Gulf News: ” How can the developer say that this has Rera’s approval when no homeowners association has been set up for the building? How did they even come up with the Dh18 a square foot number when none us is even aware of an audit having been done?(…) And who gave them the right to set the service charges when the Strata Law clearly requires owners associations to be the responsible entity to do it?”

So you see dear Kipp readers, our cynicism aside, sometimes we are just as amazed as you must be at the ridiculous things people get away with saying and doing. Looking at stories such as these just makes us think property developers still haven’t gotten over the boom phase, when they should shout out an arbitrary number and expect tenants and owners to shell out the cash. Or you can just say you have completed 16,000 units and expect that people will buy them all regardless of the very saturated market you are operating in. Is this just wishful thinking or a really bad case of denial? All jokes aside, attitudes such as these are just downright hurtful to the sector and need to be checked before things get better.

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Tags: cityscape 2011, cityscape 2011 property developers, first quarter JLS, JLS Q1 2011, Jones Lang LaSalle, property, property UAE, Q1 JLS, Real estate, report, villas