Oqood is the Dubai Land Department system through which an off-plan unit sale is entered into the interim property register. It exists because the thing being sold does not physically exist yet: until the building is completed and registered, the buyer's ownership right lives in that register rather than in a title deed. For a developer, Oqood registration is not paperwork at the end of a sale — it is the sale becoming legally real.
The sequence
- Reservation and SPA. The buyer signs the reservation form and then the sale and purchase agreement, which must reflect the DLD-approved payment plan and project details.
- Escrow deposit. The buyer's payment goes into the project's escrow account, not the developer's operating account. This is a condition of the off-plan regime, not a courtesy. See DLD escrow milestone releases.
- Oqood submission. The developer, or a registration trustee acting for them, submits the unit, buyer and contract details together with the required documents.
- Fee payment. The registration fee — typically 4 percent of the purchase price — plus the applicable administrative fee.
- Oqood certificate issued. The buyer now appears against the unit in the interim register.
What you need before you start
| Document | Source | Common problem |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer passport copy, and Emirates ID if resident | Buyer | Expired passport, name spelled differently from the SPA |
| Signed SPA with approved payment plan | Developer | Payment plan differs from the DLD-registered plan |
| Unit details matching the registered project | Developer | Area or unit number differs from the approved plan |
| Escrow deposit proof | Escrow bank | Payment made to the wrong account |
| Company documents for corporate buyers | Buyer | Missing board resolution or authorised signatory proof |
| NOC or approvals where applicable | Master developer | Requested at submission rather than in advance |
Almost every stalled registration traces back to this table. The two that recur most: a buyer name that does not match the passport exactly, and a payment plan in the signed SPA that does not match the plan registered for the project.
Where developers actually lose time
Registering in batches. Holding a month of sales and submitting them together feels efficient and is not: an error in one file blocks the batch, and a buyer who has paid but is not registered is a complaint waiting to happen. Register on conclusion of each sale.
Losing the document chain. The passport copy is in an email, the SPA is on a shared drive, the escrow proof is with finance. Each registration then becomes a hunt. Holding all of them against the unit record removes the hunt entirely.
Not reconciling registered units against sold units. Once a month, the count of units sold in your own system and the count registered in Oqood should be equal. When they are not, the difference is usually a sale someone assumed had been registered.
Resale and assignment
Off-plan resale before handover is common in Dubai, and it goes through DLD too: the original buyer's interim registration is transferred to the new buyer, subject to the developer's NOC and any transfer conditions in the SPA. Developers who track assignment history against the unit — original buyer, assignment date, NOC reference, new buyer — answer transfer requests in hours. Those who track it in email answer in weeks, and delay is what causes buyers to escalate.
Payment plans and registration
The payment plan is registered with the project, so an ad-hoc plan agreed by a sales manager to close a deal is a registration problem, not just a finance one. This is one reason payment plan structures should be a short, approved list rather than something negotiated per unit — see off-plan payment plan structures.
What to do next
Take last month's concluded sales and check three things for each: is it registered, does the buyer name match the passport exactly, and does the SPA payment plan match the registered plan. If any answer is no, that unit is a handover problem you can fix now for far less than you will fix it later — see how the unit, escrow and Oqood records sit together.