Abu Dhabi: What to do if you don’t get your security deposit back? Read here to know

It is a common practice in UAE for people to put down a security deposit at the time of a new rent contract. Usually, the money is paid back to the tenant before he leaves the property. But what can you do if you do not get the security deposit back in case the ownership of the apartment is changed in between?

According to one of the reports published by Gulf News, a person from Abu Dhabi shared that he was a tenant of a property agent-owned apartment for about five years. After three years of his moving in, the ownership of the apartment was transferred from the individual to a financial firm.

As a security deposit, he had paid 3,000Dhs (United Arab Emirates Dirham) to the first owner, and he was made to pay an extra Dh2000, as it was a requirement, to the second owner. But after he decided to vacate the house, the new owner (finance firm) returned only Dh2000, citing that “the rest was paid to the previous landlord .”


The man even had a registered lease agreement, called Tawtheeq in UAE, which states that he has paid a total of Dh5000 as his deposit money. He further asked about his rights and questioned how he could get his money back. He added that how is it possible that this thing was never mentioned before, stating, “I renewed my contract with them twice.”

When the news organization issued the query to a law firm, they said that the man should get his entire refund and that the financial organization was at fault for not doing so.