Regarding proof of ownership of property, in terms of Articles 5, 22 and 24 of the Dubai Property Law, if a purchaser considers that he is the owner of a property, the contract or other agreement by which he acquires that ownership is insufficient to prove it. The purchaser needs to take the contract to the Lands Department and apply for ownership to be registered in his name. If the application is in order, the Lands Department will register his ownership in the Property Register and issue him with a ‘Title Certificate’. This is the document which proves his ownership.
If Title Certificates are conclusive evidence of property ownership, what if they have been issued incorrectly or contain incorrect information? Article 7 of the Dubai Property Law allows objections to the data recorded in the Property Register ‘on the grounds of fraud or forgery’. Further, Article 13 authorizes the Lands Department to correct errors in the Property Register on its own initiative or at the request of an interested party.
In conclusion, it is the Property Register itself that at any point in time is the conclusive source of information regarding property rights, and the Title Certificates contain a mirror record of that information as of the date that they are issued. If some time has passed since a Title Certificate was issued, and a party wishes to rely on the information that it contains, he should go to the Lands Department and check it against the Property Register. The information may have changed since the Title Certificate was issued, perhaps because the Lands Department has rectified the Register pursuant to Article 7 or Article 13. Or maybe subsequent entries have been made in the Property Register without the co-operation of the title holder, and therefore without amendment to his Title Certificate, for example, some form of third party interest or a court judgment.
