What Happens to Your Dubai Property When You Die

Law No. 7 of 2006 Concerning Real Property Registration provides that if the estate of a deceased person contains real property rights, a certificate of inheritance will be registered in the Property Register, and that disposal by any heir of such rights will not be effective or recognised against third parties unless also registered.

Alongside it sits the general rule that transactions creating, transferring, amending or extinguishing real property rights are not valid unless recorded in the register, which has absolute evidentiary value against all parties unless fraud or forgery is proven.

So there is no version of this where the UAE process is skipped. Heirs will need a recognised determination of who inherits, in a form the Land Department can register. Everything else — which will governs, which court issues what — is about how quickly and cheaply that determination is reached. Understanding what is UAE trade licence can also be beneficial in this context.

Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2022 on Civil Personal Status applies to non-Muslims who are UAE citizens and to non-Muslim foreigners residing in the State, in respect of marriage, divorce, inheritance, wills and proof of parentage, unless the person concerned adheres to the application of the law of their home country. It came into force on 1 February 2023.

Its default inheritance rule, where there is no will, is that half of the estate devolves to the husband or wife and the other half is distributed equally among the children, with no differentiation between male and female. Where there are no children, the estate passes to the parents if living, or half to a surviving parent with the other half to the deceased's brothers and sisters.

The right to have your own country's law applied instead is real, and it is also a right that has to be invoked and evidenced rather than something that happens automatically. That is the argument for putting the position beyond dispute while you can.

The DIFC Courts operate a Wills Service for non-Muslims, under Dubai Law No. 15 of 2017 regulating inheritance, wills and probate for non-Muslims, extended to Ras Al Khaimah by practice direction. On a death, the DIFC Courts issue the probate orders — and guardianship orders where relevant — to those appointed to prove the will and wind up the estate.

Eligibility, as the Courts state it, is that you are not Muslim and have never been a Muslim, are at least 18 years of age, and own assets in the UAE or have minor children residing with you in the UAE. Guardianship provisions cover minor children resident in Dubai or Ras Al Khaimah.

If the property is registered to a company, the asset in your estate is not the property. It is the shares. That is a different asset, in a different register, governed by the company's constitutional documents and by whatever shareholders' agreement exists.

This can be an improvement or a complication, and which one it is depends entirely on whether the company's documents say what happens on a shareholder's death. Where they do — transfer provisions, pre-emption rights, an agreed valuation mechanism — the succession is orderly and the title deed never moves at all, because the owner of the property has not changed. Where they say nothing, you have added a company to the problem without removing the problem.

It also splits the planning into two documents rather than one. That is precisely why the DIFC Courts publish a Business Owners Will covering shareholdings separately from a Property Will covering real estate: an owner who holds one apartment personally and another through a company needs both instruments to be right, and needs them to be consistent with each other.

Structures that transfer ownership during life — foundations and trusts among them — change the position more fundamentally, because there may be no estate asset to pass at all. They also carry their own tax, reporting and control consequences in every country you touch, and they are firmly in the territory where a specialist adviser is the only sensible route.

None of the above is a substitute for advice. It is the list of questions worth arriving with. We are not a law firm and we do not draft wills; where a client needs succession planning we introduce a qualified lawyer and, where a structure is involved, coordinate with them on how the company side is documented.