Your building's management company passes through separate Land Department services, and their requirements are specific: three managers with at least three years' experience each, a good-conduct certificate from Dubai Police addressed to the regulator, and a ban on working before registering in the Mollak system and obtaining a professional identification card. An appointed auditor, meanwhile, is expressly barred from auditing the same project two years running.
Checked against the official sources on 17 September 2026: the Dubai Land Department service cards "Registering real estate company application for practicing administrative supervision services of joint ownership properties", "Registering employees having professional competence in the management of joint ownership properties application", "Request for approval to appoint an audit office for the purpose of auditing the financial accounts of a jointly owned property", "Request for the approval of appointing an audit office to conduct an audit of the budget for the services allowance or the usage allowance of a joint property", "Applying for approval to open a private bank account for the joint ownership property", "Request to obtain approval for transferring the escrow account from its current bank to another financial institution" and "Request of approval to accredit authorized signatories on the escrow account". All pages were read in their raw form; every requirement carries its source link, and the sources are listed at the end. This is an account of the regulator's requirements for management companies — not a statement about this publication's own licences.
Who approves the service charge rate and where to check it we covered separately; the owners committee's powers here. That leaves the third side of the same triangle, which almost nobody writes about: what the regulator requires of the management company itself, of its staff, of the auditor of your budget, and of your building's bank account. Each of those questions has its own service card.
All seven services are addressed to companies, all run through the Mollak system, and none charges the applicant a fee. The value here is not the price but the conditions: they describe who is allowed to handle your building's money at all.
A company cannot simply start managing a building
The description: the service allows applying for the registration of a real estate company for practicing supervision services for joint ownership properties through the online Mollak system. Free, five minutes, applicant status — companies.
The requirements are set out in four lines, and three of them are hard:
"2- Applying for a certificate of good conduct from the Dubai Police addressed to the Real Estate Regulatory Agency"
A good-conduct certificate from Dubai Police, addressed to the regulator. Not "to the company", not "for the file" — to the Real Estate Regulatory Agency.
"3- No person has the right to practice the activity registered in the license only after registering in the Mollak system and obtaining a professional identification card"
No person may carry out the activity registered in the licence until they are registered in Mollak and hold a professional identification card. The sentence is awkwardly built ("only after" and "no… right" in one clause), and we quote it as printed; the meaning reads unambiguously — registration and card first, work second.
"4- Neither the management company nor the employees may engage in any other unauthorized activity."
Neither the company nor its employees may engage in any other unauthorised activity. The fourth line is about sticking to what the licence says.
The first condition is printed as "1- The residences for expatriates must be on the same real estate license" — it concerns tying expatriate staff's residences to the same real estate licence. We quote the wording without decoding it: the card does not explain it, and we will not fill that in for the Department.
Three managers, each with at least three years
The most concrete part of this card is its document list. It asks not for company paperwork but for people:
| Who | What is required | Where it is stated |
|---|---|---|
| The company | company logo image | company registration card |
| Company director | personal photo | company registration card |
| Owners Affairs Manager | photo + experience certificate of no less than 3 years in owners' affairs or complex management | company registration card |
| Finance Manager | photo + experience certificate of not less than 3 years in financial management | company registration card |
| Facilities Management Manager | photo + experience certificate of not less than 3 years in facility management or maintenance | company registration card |
Three roles, and none of them can be nominal: experience is evidenced by a certificate, and the threshold is the same three years. For an owner that translates simply: the company servicing your building is required to keep a finance manager and a facilities manager with documented experience on staff, not one general manager covering everything.
Staff are registered by name, by position
The second card is the registration of employees with professional competence in managing joint ownership properties. Free, 25 minutes, also through Mollak.
It lists positions in four groups, and the list itself shows how the regulator pictures a management company:
- owners' affairs: manager, executive, coordinator;
- finance: accounts supervisor, senior accountant, accountant;
- facilities and quality: facilities manager and supervisor, quality manager and controller, HSE manager, supervisor and inspector;
- compliance: assistant compliance manager, compliance officer, compliance executive officer.
The document required for each is a personal photo. The conditions are the same as for the company, including the ban on working before registering in Mollak and obtaining a professional identification card.
The presence of a compliance group on that list is not a detail. The regulator assumes that a company handling owners' money has dedicated people watching rule compliance, and registers them separately.
The auditor must be rotated: two years running is not allowed
Two cards deal with appointing an auditor, and both carry the same single condition:
"As per the regulations, it is not permissible for an audit to be conducted on the same project for two consecutive years."
Under the regulations an audit of the same project is not permitted in two consecutive years. In other words, the audit office that checked your building's budget this year may not check it next year. That is a classic guard against auditor and audited growing together, and it is written straight into the service's conditions.
Auditors are appointed for two different reasons, and these are two separate services:
| Service | What is audited | Time | Where it is stated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Appointing an auditor of financial accounts | the final financial accounts of the jointly owned property | 1 business day | accounts audit card |
| Appointing an auditor of the budget | the annual budget for the services allowance or the usage allowance | 1 business day | budget audit card |
So both the plan (the budget your rate is derived from) and the outcome (the final accounts) are checked. How the rate itself is justified is covered separately; the law above it is here.
These two cards name no fees at all — which is not the same as "free". Their fee field is empty, whereas neighbouring cards in the cluster print "Free service" outright. We record the difference rather than filling the gap for the Department.
Your building's account: opening, moving, authorising signatories
The three remaining services concern the jointly owned property's bank account. It should not be confused with the escrow account of a project under construction: there it is buyers' money for building, here it is owners' money for running the building. The project account is covered in a separate article.
Opening the account. An application for approval to open a bank account for the jointly owned property: free, 10 minutes, via Mollak, partners — banks.
Moving the account to another bank. One business day, with the conditions set out in a sensible order:
- before closing the old account, approval must be obtained from the regulator;
- the previous account custodian must transfer the available balance to the new bank along with all relevant documents and records — the approved budget and expenditure details are named outright;
- the new custodian provides the updated bank account information through the Mollak system.
Authorising signatories. One business day, exactly one document — the company licence — and one condition: "The company director or the company’s financial director is required to be present" — the company director or its financial director must be present.
This service's channel field carries a caveat, which we quote as it stands: "Regulations Department (to be available in Mollak system soon)" — the service currently runs through the Regulations Department, with Mollak promised "soon". The Department names no date.
What an owner can actually check
Here honesty is required: three of the seven cards print "None" in the issued-documents field. Company registration and employee registration say the data is viewed in the Mollak system and on the Department's website; the account transfer says the same. Nothing is handed over on paper.
Practically that means the requirements above are not something shown to you as a certificate on request, but something that must have been satisfied and reflected in the system. What an owner can verify unaided we collected in the Mollak walkthrough; the cards name no public page saying who is registered as your building's manager.
What we are not claiming here
- Exactly what an owner can see in Mollak. The cards say data is "viewed in the system"; how much is open to a resident and how much to the company they do not distinguish.
- How to verify a particular manager's experience. An experience certificate is required at registration; the cards offer no way to see it from outside.
- Whether appointing an auditor is free. Their fee field is empty — an absent line, not a declared zero.
- Who selects the audit office. The service concerns approving an appointment; the selection process is not described.
- What happens if the two-consecutive-years ban is breached. The rule is stated; the sanction is not.
- What the expatriate residences line means. It is quoted verbatim; the card does not explain it, and we do not decode it.
- When the signatories service will appear in Mollak. "Soon" is printed; no date is.
Sources
- Registering real estate company application for practicing administrative supervision services of joint ownership properties — Dubai Land Department service card: registration of a company for supervision of jointly owned properties through Mollak, free of charge, 5 minutes, status — companies, four conditions (expatriate residences on the same real estate licence, a Dubai Police good-conduct certificate addressed to the regulator, a ban on practising before registering in Mollak and obtaining a professional identification card, a ban on any other unauthorised activity), documents requiring experience certificates of no less than three years for the owners affairs manager, the finance manager and the facilities management manager; no issued documents, data is viewed in Mollak and on the Department's website.
- Registering employees having professional competence in the management of joint ownership properties application — service card: registration of employees through Mollak, free of charge, 25 minutes, status — companies, three conditions, positions listed in four groups (owners' affairs, accounts, facilities and quality including HSE, compliance), one document each — a personal photo; no issued documents, data is viewed in Mollak and via the online log-in card.
- Request for approval to appoint an audit office for the purpose of auditing the financial accounts of a jointly owned property — service card: approval to appoint an auditor of the final financial accounts of a jointly owned property, the single condition being the ban on auditing the same project two consecutive years, 1 business day, channel — Mollak, status — companies, partners — financial institutions; the fee field is empty.
- Request for the approval of appointing an audit office to conduct an audit of the budget for the services allowance or the usage allowance of a joint property — service card: approval to appoint an auditor of the annual budget for the services or usage allowance, the same two-consecutive-years condition, 1 business day, channel — Mollak, status — companies, partners — financial institutions; the fee field is empty.
- Applying for approval to open a private bank account for the joint ownership property — service card: approval to open a bank account for the jointly owned property, free of charge, 10 minutes, channel — Mollak, status — companies, partners — banks.
- Request to obtain approval for transferring the escrow account from its current bank to another financial institution — service card: moving the jointly owned property account to another bank, three conditions (the regulator's approval before closing the old account, transfer of the balance together with the approved budget and expenditure details, entering the new details through Mollak), 1 business day, channel — Mollak, status — companies, partners — banks; no issued documents, data is viewed in Mollak.
- Request of approval to accredit authorized signatories on the escrow account — service card: accrediting authorised signatories, condition — the presence of the company director or the financial director, document — the company licence, 1 business day, channel — the Regulations Department with a note that it will be in Mollak "soon", status — companies, partners — banks.
