I went and renewed the lease for my apartment the other day and got a rude shock, as did all the tenants, whose chequebooks nearly slipped from their hands.

The plush office in The Gardens moved recently to opposite Ibn Battuta Mall and is now known intimidatingly as the Asset Management office.

Inside, you are asked to take a number as in a bank and when it is called it is displayed on a large wall-mounted TV screen that tells you which counter to go to. This was easy for me to figure out, as there were only three counters.

A man was carrying an enormous tray full of chocolates in gold wrappings and was going from desk to desk offering the staff the candies while ignoring us, the hungry tenants.

Only one man in our tiny group was waiting to cancel his lease, and since the office hours were coming to a close for the day, there was sudden flurry of activity and a staff member got up and announced that if your number is not called by 3pm, you will have to come back the next day. Someone asked how long it would take to process one tenant's file and the reply was 30 minutes.

It was 2pm and I thought I would be in and out of the office really fast as I had brought everything with me this time — a copy of my passport and a brand new chequebook that was delivered to me by a courier on a motorcycle who was sweating buckets under his helmet. The chequebook had cost me Dh25, but I think the bank paid much more than that for it to be couriered to me.

I flipped through the chequebook while I waited and saw that each of the cheques had both my name and my wife's name inscribed on them. Apparently her grandmother had cautioned her after our marriage to make sure that any bank account should be a joint account — most probably to make it harder for me to pack up and disappear one day, as happens from time to time in Dubai. (I came to know much later that my wife comes from a matriarchal society where women are treated on an equal footing with men.)

I was sitting and playing an inane game on my mobile while waiting for my turn when I heard a man shouting in surprise, "But nobody informed us". After a few moments of silence, he took out a calculator and furiously started punching in numbers. "This is too much," he then said in disgust, but was browbeaten by a woman staffer who told him she could easily cancel his lease if he wished.

When my turn came, I was told the rent had been hiked by 20 per cent. "Aren't rents dropping everywhere?" I asked, and was told that they can legally raise the rent for The Gardens as it is below the present market price.

I was given the option of signing six post-dated cheques instead of four, but I always get a creepy feeling when signing post-dated cheques after hearing of people cooling their heels in prison after their cheques bounced.

Then I was asked to sign a paper detailing how many people live in the flat. In the column after my wife's name was the box for her date of birth, which I didn't know. I had to call her, while the counter person looked at me in pity.

"Maybe I should tell them your mother will be living with me for three months. Do you think they will feel sorry for me and give me a discount?" I asked my wife.