Maintenance in a Dubai Rental: Who Pays for What

In a Dubai rental the contract decides who pays for maintenance. Where it is silent, the accepted position is that the landlord handles major repairs and the tenant handles minor day to day items, with a threshold of a few hundred dirhams commonly written in.

Almost every maintenance argument in Dubai comes from a contract that never defined the split. Define it before you sign and the problem disappears.

Who pays for what?

This reflects common practice rather than a fixed rule. Current as of August 2026, and your contract overrides it either way.

What should the contract actually say?

Three sentences are enough. Who arranges maintenance, who pays, and the threshold below which the tenant covers it. A common formulation makes the tenant responsible for repairs under a set amount per incident, often in the range of 500 to 1,000 dirhams, with the landlord covering anything above.

Also state who services the air conditioning and how often, because in Dubai that is the item most likely to cost real money and the one most often left undefined.

What if the landlord will not carry out a repair?

1. Report it in writing with photographs, and keep the message. A phone call is not evidence.
2. Give a reasonable deadline in a follow up message.
3. Escalate to the agent or the property manager if there is one.
4. For anything urgent affecting habitability, such as no cooling in summer or a water leak, say so explicitly and keep pressing in writing.
5. If it is still ignored, the Rental Disputes Centre handles maintenance complaints, and the registered Ejari contract is the reference document.

Do not simply deduct the cost from your rent. Withholding rent puts you in breach even when your complaint is fair, and it hands the landlord the stronger position. See how the Rental Disputes Centre works.

What is not maintenance, and who pays for that?

Service charges are the owner's cost, not the tenant's, and they are separate from maintenance inside the unit. Cooling charges are usually the tenant's where chilled water is billed by a district provider, but check whether a capacity or demand charge sits with the owner. Our guide to DEWA and chiller charges explains the difference, and service charges explained covers the owner side.

What should tenants do at the start of the tenancy?

• Inspect and photograph everything before you move furniture in.
• Send the list to the landlord or agent within the first days, in writing.
• Confirm who to contact for maintenance and how.
• Ask for the air conditioning service history.
• Keep every receipt for anything you pay for yourself.

That set of documents is what protects your deposit at the end. See getting your deposit back.

And landlords?

Fix things quickly. A responsive landlord keeps a good tenant for years, and a good tenant is worth more than the cost of a compressor. If you do not want the calls, a management arrangement handles it for a percentage of the rent, which our guide to property management costs breaks down.

Ask us to review the maintenance clause before you sign, whichever side of it you are on.