Picture for illustrative purposes only. ARCHIVE

The Dubai Real Estate Court has rejected a lawsuit filed by an Asian woman who sought to partition a villa in Dubai that she jointly owns with her son. The court ruled that the property, designated for single-family use, is indivisible. Court documents revealed that the mother owns a 50 percent share in the Dh5.25 million property and intended to transfer her portion to another son to maintain fairness among her children. However, she was unable to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the developer because her co-owner son did not cooperate and was absent from the process. Her initial attempt to resolve the dispute through the Dubai Personal Status Court was dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction, prompting her to escalate the matter to the Real Estate Court. The woman asked the court to either allocate her share of the villa or allow the partition of the property to enable her to sell her stake. The court assigned a specialized expert to determine the feasibility of dividing the property. The son’s legal representative, Dr. Alaa Nasr, argued for the dismissal of the case on the grounds that the property is designed as a single-family villa and cannot be practically or legally divided into two equal portions. The expert report confirmed this, stating that the villa, which consists of a ground floor and a first floor and is currently rented, was not designed to be split and therefore could not be divided fairly. The report also assessed the market value of the villa at Dh5.25 million, based on data from the Dubai Land Department. Dr. Nasr emphasized that the court based its ruling on the UAE Civil Transactions Law, which stipulates that co-owned properties must be divisible for a partition to be granted.  “The court’s rejection of the plaintiff’s claims was based on the provisions of the Civil Transactions Law,” Nasr said. “The expert’s report conclusively established the impossibility of fairly dividing the property.” The case has now been officially dismissed, with the court upholding the indivisible nature of the villa. ICA/Expat Media
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