Property Developer To Fulfil Commitment

Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR) homeowners claim property developer Dubai Properties LLC has reneged on some contractual obligations and sales material. The owners, including an estimated 1,000 owner-occupiers and investors, say the developer has changed plans for a beach park and gyms and did not stick to the promised deadline. A Dubai Properties spokesperson said construction at JBR was still under way and, due to the large scale of the development, the planning process was complicated. However the spokesperson said the developer was committed to delivering a completed project that kept to its sales pitch -Lifestyle of a Lifetime.

One homeowner, who is among a group spearheading communication with Dubai Properties and the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) to settle the dispute, detailed the changes to the plans. The original master plan details a 500,000 sq-ft beach park area for the community's use. However, there have been a series of revised plans issued one year after handover at the end of 2007 and five years after the original master plan was presented in 2002. The changes include a car park which residents estimate comprises half of the proposed beach park area. This is not what we bought into, he said. We purchased a luxurious beachfront lifestyle as promised in the brochure. We are asking for nothing more than what we were sold. The tarmac for the car park has since been laid and is nearly completed. Dubai Properties officials have told the owners that the 500 car parking spaces were added to service the retail outlets. The second major issue that owners have raised is the reduction of gym facilities from seven gyms, as promised in the sales brochure, to two, according to the written communication from the developer to owners.

The homeowner said despite several letters sent by individual owners and the group to Dubai Properties, officials had not provided any written commitments. The contract between Dubai Properties and the owner states Dubai Properties must hold a quarterly Master Community Forum, but owners said no such forum had been established. Half a dozen unofficial meetings over the past 10 weeks have been held between various JBR owners' representatives and Dubai Properties officials but the owners say no written resolution was provided. However a Dubai Properties spokesperson, in a statement issued by its public relations company, said the company was grateful for any feedback provided. We, at Dubai Properties, always appreciate feedback on all of our projects and, particularly, when such feedback stems from our customers, clients and partners alike, the spokesperson said. The spokesperson highlighted that the large size of the project meant a complex planning process. By real estate industry standards, a project of such proportions is bound to open up a multi-layered complexity to the project planning process, the spokesperson said.