Damac will pay out over project delays

Property investors who have bought units in projects sold by Damac Properties have complained to XPRESS over the past few weeks on several issues.

Niall McLoughlin, Senior Vice- President, Corporate Communica-tions, Damac, sent the company's response to the complaints.

Is the delay in the handover true? If so, will you compensate the buyers for late delivery of their units (according to the purchase contract)?

Yes, Lakeview [at Jumeirah Lake Towers] was delayed for many reasons. Damac will pay compensation for this delay as per the terms of signed sales and pur-chase agreements with customers.

You took out a full-page advertisement in a major newspaper two months ago claiming delivery of the building when in fact it's yet to be delivered?

The handover process does not happen overnight. We already have people living in Lakeview. When we placed those advertisements, the handover process had started. Will you go ahead with your plan to charge investors for the extra space before hand-over and charge them two per cent registration fee instead of one per cent?

In relation to unit registration, Damac Properties does not charge two per cent. Customers pay one per cent as registration fee charged by the Land Department on the purchaser. In addition to this, there is a one per cent recharge by Damac Properties to customers.

Customers agreed to this recharge in the sales and purchase agreement they signed. In relation to area variation, in the sales and purchase agreement, any area variations – bigger or smaller – was agreed by both parties to be addressed upon handover and the difference was payable with the final invoice and that is what's happening. The interpretation of Article No 12 of Law 13 is yet to be clarified. We expect Rera to issue bylaws in relation to area variations.

Damac Properties will adhere to any regulations issued by Rera. Until such time as the bylaws are in place, we are charging in line with the contractual agreement that customers have signed.

Why won't Damac allow owners to have an independent surveyor measure the apartments to verify how much bigger they are?

We did not allow it prior to the handover as we would have had more than 550 people wanting to do this and this would have caused great delays in handover. All units were measured by a certified quantity surveyor as per Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) guidelines.

All customers can have an independent surveyor measure the apartments once the handover procedure is complete. If there are any discrepancies, these relevant adjustments to customers will be made immediately.

Damac is among the slowest real estate developers in the region.

The year 2008 was the ‘Year of Construction' at Damac Properties, during which it aggressively focused on construction and contract delivery to trusted and quality contractors. In line with this, Damac Properties handed over 2,300 homes to customers and is expected to hand over a further 7,100 units (approximately) in 2009-10 across the GCC region.

In 2009, the company aims to build on this progress with a focus on timely completion and delivery. In 2008, more than 18 million man hours were worked across Damac Properties' major sites in Dubai. You will be able to determine if this is the record of the “slowest real estate developer in the region'' as the statement claims.