Law No. 6 of 2019 draws the line between your unit and the common parts item by item: floors down to the base of the joists, internal non-load-bearing walls, windows and doors, bathrooms and balconies are yours; structural supports, façades, staircases and lifts are not. A parking bay designated to a unit is declared an INTEGRAL part of it — the unit cannot be sold without it. And the share of the common parts is yours undivided, calculated by area.
Verified against official sources on 2026-09-15: the text of Law No. 6 of 2019 comes from the Dubai Legislation Portal (dlp.dubai.gov.ae). Source links sit next to each rule and again at the end. The portal notes that the English version is a translation and that the Arabic text prevails in case of conflict. This is not legal advice: a specific property is judged on its own site plan and documents.
"What exactly is mine" looks obvious right up to the first leak or the first parking argument. In Dubai the boundary between private and common is drawn by statute, item by item — and it is useful to know before you need it.
The document is Law No. (6) of 2019 Concerning Ownership of Jointly Owned Real Property in the Emirate of Dubai, issued on 4 September 2019.
What is inside your unit
Article 9 lists the components of a unit, with a caveat that must not be skipped: unless otherwise indicated on the Site Plan. The law sets a default; a particular building's plan may change it.
By default a unit includes:
- floors, flooring materials and their components down to the base of the joists, and the structures supporting the floor;
- plaster and other ceilings, additions forming part of the interior, the spaces between such ceilings, ceilings above support walls and structures inside the unit, and the walls separating the unit from other parts of the property, adjacent units or common parts;
- the internal area, non-load-bearing internal walls, and the surrounding walls of the unit;
- windows, glass, fixtures forming part of the internal windows, lighting systems, doors, door frames, and all equipment and fixtures serving the unit;
- bathrooms and other integral parts, including balconies and other ancillary parts allocated to the owner;
- facilities attached or allocated to the unit — gardens, car parks, storage rooms or watchmen rooms, even where they do not adjoin the unit, provided they are attached to it and their area is not included in the unit's net area;
- internal connections serving the unit;
- fixtures and fittings installed by the occupant;
- additions, modifications and improvements made to the unit from time to time.
Note the second and third items: non-load-bearing walls are yours, load-bearing ones are not. That is the practical answer to what may be removed in a renovation and what may not be touched at all.
What counts as common parts
Article 7 lists the common parts, and the list is open-ended ("including, without limitation"). In a building: structural components — main supports, foundations, columns, structural walls, ceilings, ceiling joists, staircases, stairwells, façades and roofs; thresholds, halls, parking aisles, entrances, emergency exits and windows in external walls; watchmen rooms, recreational facilities and equipment, swimming pools, gardens, storage facilities, offices, and car parks designated for the management entity, the owners committee or visitors; the equipment and systems of main utilities — generators, lighting, gas, cold and hot water, heating and cooling, air conditioning, waste collection and treatment; lifts, tanks, pipes, chimneys, ventilation, air compressors; water mains, sewer and gas pipes, electrical and telecommunications wiring serving more than one unit; utility metering equipment; and any parts outside unit boundaries necessary for the existence, maintenance, safety or operation of the property.
For a land plot the common parts include roads, roundabouts, intersections, pathways, pavement edges, median strips, viaducts and drainage systems, and — unless the site plan says otherwise — lakes, ponds, canals, parks, fountains and other waterways with their equipment.
Three of those items carry the "unless otherwise indicated on the Site Plan" caveat. Which means the site plan is a document worth reading, not just the contract.
Parking: the rule to know before the deal
Article 10 is drafted more firmly than the rest:
«The car parks allocated or designated to a Unit under the legislation applicable by the Competent Authority will be deemed an integral part of the Unit, and may not be separated, or sold independently, from that Unit.» — Law No. (6) of 2019, Article 10(a)
Two practical consequences follow. The developer must register units together with their designated car parks in the owners' names; and in all events a unit may not be sold or disposed of without them. Additional bays may be purchased — but only those in excess of the bays designated for all units in the property, and the Director General prescribes when such purchases are allowed.
We met the same rule from the other side in the off-plan bylaw, where car parks are named among the facilities the developer must register to the purchaser — our reading of the 2010 bylaw.
Your share of the common parts
Article 11: an owner — and the developer in respect of unsold units — owns an undivided interest in the common parts, determined by the ratio of the unit area to the total area of the property.
"Undivided" is doing real work here: the share cannot be carved out in kind and cannot be sold apart from the apartment. The same logic produces the prohibition in Article 17: common parts may never be converted into private property, subdivided, or disposed of in whole or in part independently of the units they pertain to, without the prior approval of the DLD and the competent authority.
That same share also sets the size of your service charge — covered separately.
Disposing of a unit, and subdividing one
Article 12: an owner may sell or otherwise lawfully dispose of his unit, and may mortgage it to any bank or financing institution licensed in the emirate. How the mortgage itself works is covered by the mortgage law of 2008.
Article 13: a unit owned by two or more persons may not be subdivided between them unless subdivision is permitted by the master community declaration, the DLD's approval is obtained, and the competent authority grants the necessary licences. All three, not any one.
The co-owner's pre-emption right
Articles 14 and 15 describe a mechanism people rarely consider when buying a share.
A co-owner has a pre-emption right to buy another co-owner's share if it is offered to someone who is not an owner. Where several exercise it, each buys in proportion to his existing share. The right does not arise on a sale to ascendants, descendants, a spouse, relatives up to the fourth degree, or in-laws up to the second degree.
The procedure in Article 15 is strict:
| Step | Deadline and form |
|---|---|
| the seller notifies co-owners through a notary public — naming the third-party purchaser and the terms of sale | the form is mandatory |
| co-owners may accept those terms | 30 days from receipt; silence forfeits the right |
| the accepting co-owner notifies the seller through a notary public and completes the sale with the DLD | 10 working days from expiry of the notice period |
The right cannot be divided: it is exercised or waived in whole, and one co-owner's waiver passes to the others in proportion to their shares. And a separate safeguard: if the sale to the third party turns out to be on terms more favourable than those in the notice, the co-owners may claim compensation for their loss before the Rent Disputes Settlement Centre. How that body is built: separately.
If you let your apartment
Article 16: letting is allowed, but owner and tenant both remain bound by the statute, the master community declaration and the building management regulation. And crucially: unless the lease says otherwise, the owner pays the service charges, and he is not discharged if the tenant fails to pay. The contractual obligations of the two sides of a tenancy are in our reading of the tenancy law.
What we do NOT claim here
- That the lists are closed. Article 7 says "including, without limitation", and Articles 7 and 9 repeatedly defer to the site plan. Your plan may allocate the boundary differently.
- What may or may not be changed in a renovation. The law describes the composition of a unit and of the common parts, not the permitting process; those are separate rules and separate approvals.
- The share calculation method in detail. The law defers to resolutions of the Director General, which we do not quote.
- When an additional parking bay may be bought. The law assigns those cases to the Director General and does not list them.
- Any sums. There are none here: this is about the boundary of a right, not about prices.
Sources
- Law No. (6) of 2019 Concerning Ownership of Jointly Owned Real Property in the Emirate of Dubai — Dubai Legislation Portal: Article 7 (composition of common parts in a building and on a land plot, site plan caveats), Article 9 (unit components, including floors to the base of the joists, non-load-bearing walls, bathrooms and balconies, allocated facilities that do not adjoin), Article 10 (car park as an integral part of the unit, the developer's duty to register it to the owner, conditions for buying additional bays), Article 11 (undivided interest in the common parts by area), Article 12 (sale and mortgage of a unit), Article 13 (three conditions for subdividing a unit between co-owners), Article 14 (pre-emption right and the degrees of kinship excluded), Article 15 (notary notice, 30 days, 10 working days, indivisibility of the right, compensation where terms were more favourable), Article 16 (letting out; charges on the owner unless agreed otherwise), Article 17 (common parts may not be converted into private property or disposed of independently of the units). Issued on 4 September 2019.
