Landmark Holdings: verifying a developer yourself, in twenty minutes

Buyers spend weeks choosing between apartments and no time at all verifying who is selling them. The checks below are public, cost nothing, and take about twenty minutes. Do them before the viewing, not after the deposit.

The order to do them in

• Is the developer registered? Developers must be registered with the regulator to sell. Confirm the company exists under that exact name — trading names and legal names often differ, and the one on your contract is the one that matters.
• Is the project registered and licensed? A project must be registered before units may be sold, and it has a number. Ask for it and confirm it. A developer that cannot produce a project number is not ready to take your money.
• Does an escrow account exist for this project? It should be named in the contract, project-specific, at a named bank. Confirm the account belongs to the project and not to the company generally.
• What is the recorded construction progress? Progress is a matter of record, not of description. Compare it against the payment stage you are being asked to fund.
• What has this developer actually completed? Names of finished projects, with real handover dates set against the dates announced at launch. That gap is the most predictive number available.
• Who is the main contractor? On a young developer's project, the contractor's record carries more weight than the developer's.
• Is the agent licensed? Brokers hold a registration card. Ask to see it.

What each answer tells you

• Registered developer, registered project, live escrow — the baseline. Without all three, stop; there is no version of the deal worth the risk.
• Progress behind the payment stage — the single clearest warning sign, and the point at which to take advice rather than pay.
• No completed projects — not disqualifying, but it means the contractor and the payment structure carry the whole burden.
• A pattern of long delays across completed projects — the best predictor of the next one.

What these checks do not cover

They establish that the sale is properly constituted and that your money is protected by the escrow mechanism. They say nothing about whether the price is fair, the layout is good, the district will let, or the service charge will be affordable. Those are separate questions and no register answers them.

And after you buy

• Keep checking progress against your milestones, not only before signing.
• Keep every document — the registered contract, receipts, and correspondence about defects.
• Diarise the handover date and the point at which your delay remedy becomes available.

Based on the Dubai Land Department registration and escrow framework. Confirm current procedures directly with the regulator.