Municipality denies imposition of new fees

Dubai: Dubai Municipality denied it has imposed new housing fees and refuted a rumour which it said was spread through Blackberry messaging.

It said in a statement that the Municipal switchboard was inundated with calls from a large number of people asking whether it was true.

The Municipality statement reiterated there is a housing fee which is 5 per cent of the rental value of the unit leased or owned by expatriates, and that no new fees have been added.

The rumours were that a new housing fee will be levied on Emiratis. The statement reiterated that this news is not true. The Municipality has not imposed any housing fees on all tenants of non-citizens since 1962, it said.

The Municipality noted that it has recently launched a project called integrated e-transformation system through which the public can pay the housing fee along with the bill of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa). Earlier, it used to be through the Department of Economic Development when renewing licences as well as through the lease contracts of the Dubai Real Estate Department.

The first phase of the project began in 2005 through the collection of fees by the newly registered contracts with Dewa. The Municipality worked on the development of this system in coordination with Dewa during the second phase in the light of the study notes on the application of the system in the first phase.