RERA Approved Auditors in UAE: Escrow & Mollak Audits
Escrow, Mollak and Service Charge Audit Services for Developers and Jointly Owned Properties in the UAE.
Consult with a RERA-Approved Real Estate Auditor in UAE
Speak directly with our real estate audit directors. We handle off-plan developer escrow audits, Mollak submissions, and service charge budgets. Confidential consultation.
Nadeem and Umendra Chartered Accountants (NUFCA) works exclusively with the audit obligations that Dubai’s property sector carries — developers launching off-plan projects, management companies running communities, and the jointly owned buildings themselves. Our firm appears on the Dubai Land Department’s roster of approved financial auditors, which means we can act on both halves of the regulatory picture: the escrow controls that sit behind off-plan sales, and the annual financial and service-charge audits that apply to Jointly Owned Property (JOP).
The work we take on ranges from escrow account audits and Mollak submission support to service-charge budget reviews, year-end final account audits and general compliance advisory. In each case the aim is the same — records that reconcile, documentation that stands up to review, and submissions that move through the Dubai Land Department and Real Estate Regulatory Agency without avoidable delay.
Escrow Account Obligations for Off-Plan Developers
Any developer selling units before completion in Dubai falls under Law No. 8 of 2007 on Escrow Accounts for Real Estate Development. The purpose of the framework is straightforward: money paid by buyers should be ring-fenced and spent on the project those buyers actually bought into.
The mechanics follow from that principle. The account is opened through an approved escrow agent and held in the name of the individual development — not the developer as a whole. One project, one account. Whatever sits in it is committed to constructing and completing that specific development.
Opening the account is itself a documented exercise. Among the papers required is a statement of the project’s projected costs and revenues, certified by an accredited chartered auditor.
Oversight continues after the account is live. The Dubai Land Department may call on escrow agents to file periodic statements setting out what has come into the account and what has gone out, and it may arrange for those statements and the underlying information to be audited. Any financing a developer raises against the project is likewise required to go into that project’s escrow account rather than anywhere else.
What Our Escrow Audit Covers
Depending on the stage and size of the development, our escrow audit procedures extend to:
12-Point Escrow Audit Program:
- Bank statements and transaction activity on the project escrow account
- Amounts collected from purchasers and traced through to escrow deposits
- Facilities drawn from banks or other financial institutions for the project
- Payments released to contractors, consultants and other permitted project recipients
- Underlying cost and revenue ledgers for the development
- Backing documentation — invoices, payment certificates and contracts
- Construction progress records, where these are relevant to releases
- Sales and collection data checked against DLD and Oqood records
- Closing balances and bank reconciliations on the escrow account
- Retention held and balances arising on project completion
- Exceptions, unsupported entries and points of regulatory concern
- Preparation of the financial information and reports needed for RERA and DLD purposes
The intention throughout is to hand the developer a clean, followable audit trail — and to surface reconciliation gaps or missing paperwork early, while there is still time to fix them ahead of a filing deadline.
Mollak Submissions and Audit Support
Mollak is the Dubai Land Department’s electronic platform for regulating and monitoring service charges and the financial accounts of jointly owned properties. It handles registration of management companies and auditors, the regulated community accounts, approval of service-charge budgets, the filing of financial records and audit reports, service-charge invoicing and the payment flows that follow.
We support management companies and jointly owned properties across that entire workflow — examining the information behind a budget or final-account filing, reconciling the financial records, flagging documentation that is missing or inconsistent, and producing the audit work the relevant Mollak process calls for.
Typical areas of support include:
- Audit of the annual service charge budget
- Audit of the final financial accounts
- Reconciliation of financial data held in Mollak
- Examination of movements on the regulated bank account
- Reconciliation of service charge receivables
- Comparison of budgeted figures against actual outcomes
- Review of the reserve fund
- Verification of suppliers and contracts
- Review of how service charges are allocated across units
- Preparation of the audit reports required for RERA approval
- Handling audit-related queries raised during the Mollak approval cycle
How the Service Charge Audit and Approval Process Works
Service charges levied on jointly owned properties in Dubai sit under RERA supervision. As the Dubai Land Department sets out, the service or usage charge budget is approved by RERA only once an approved financial auditing firm has completed the required audit.
In practice the sequence runs roughly as follows:
1. Appointing the auditor through Mollak
The management entity starts the appointment process inside the Mollak system. DLD operates dedicated services for approving an auditor to review the annual budgets and final financial accounts of a jointly owned property.
2. Assembling the budget and its supporting records
The pack supporting a service and usage charge approval usually draws together the detailed annual budget, quotations and tender evaluations, service and maintenance agreements, insurance particulars, utility costs and other evidence behind the proposed expenditure.
DLD’s current service requirements call specifically for a detailed annual service-charge budget, proposals and an evaluation of at least three tenders for each service provider, the relevant service and maintenance documentation, and an external financial audit report from a RERA-accredited financial auditor.
3. Auditing the individual service charge components
Our auditors work through the budget line by line — security, cleaning, maintenance, utilities, community management, insurance, master-community charges, reserve fund contributions and the other costs properly chargeable to common property.
Attention centres on the supporting documentation, the contractual terms behind each cost, the allocation methodology, what was actually spent in the prior year, the assumptions built into the budget, and the financial records that sit underneath the proposed charges.
4. Testing rates against available benchmarks
Where it adds value, proposed costs and rates are measured against the project’s own history and against RERA-approved service charge information that is publicly available. The Dubai Service Charge Index lets users look up approved charges for a jointly owned property by selecting the project, the usage type and the year.
5. Issuing the report and filing through Mollak
Once the audit is complete and any material findings have been resolved, the auditor’s report and accompanying financial information are prepared for the applicable Mollak submission and RERA review.
6. Approval and publication
After the charges clear the regulatory process, the approved figures can be reflected through the Mollak and DLD systems and the Service Charge Index. Those approved charges then become the basis on which owners are invoiced.
Why Developers and Management Companies Work With Us
Nadeem and Umendra Chartered Accountants pairs hands-on real estate audit experience with a working knowledge of how Dubai’s RERA, escrow and Mollak requirements actually operate in practice — not merely how they read on paper.
Few firms cover both regulatory tracks. We do: developer escrow accounts on the off-plan side, and financial and service-charge audits on the jointly owned property side. That breadth matters for clients whose portfolios straddle the two.
What we emphasise is unglamorous but decisive — reconciliations that hold, documentation that is complete, reporting that is transparent, and compliance issues settled before a file ever reaches the regulator rather than after.
Whether you are a developer preparing an escrow audit, a management company pushing a service charge budget through Mollak, or a jointly owned property that needs its annual financial audit, we can take the work on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Click any question below to expand the full answer on RERA and Escrow Audits in Dubai.
Q1What is a RERA Escrow Audit in Dubai?
A RERA Escrow Audit is a statutory financial review of an off-plan development’s escrow trust account under Law No. 8 of 2007, ensuring purchaser funds are collected, held, and disbursed strictly for project construction.
Q2Which law governs real estate escrow accounts in Dubai?
Real estate escrow accounts are governed by Law No. 8 of 2007 on Escrow Accounts for Real Estate Development in the Emirate of Dubai, enforced by RERA and the Dubai Land Department.
Q3What is the 5% retention rule on off-plan escrow accounts?
The escrow agent must retain 5% of the total escrow account revenue for exactly one year after unit title deeds are registered in buyers’ names to protect purchasers against latent construction defects.
Q4Can developer funds be collected outside the official escrow account?
No. RERA strictly prohibits developers from collecting off-plan installment payments outside the registered project escrow account. Doing so constitutes a serious regulatory violation subject to heavy fines.
Q5How does the RERA service charge audit process work in Mollak?
The management entity appoints a RERA-approved auditor via Mollak. The auditor examines proposed expenditure, tender evaluations, contracts, and prior actuals, then submits the audit report into Mollak for RERA approval.
Q6Can the same auditor audit a Mollak project two years in a row?
Under DLD regulations, an audit firm may audit a project for a maximum of two consecutive financial years, after which auditor rotation is mandatory to maintain objective oversight.
Q7What is the DLD Service Charge Index?
The Service Charge Index is an official public database maintained by the Dubai Land Department allowing property owners and auditors to look up approved service charge rates per square foot across all Dubai communities.
Q8Can NUFCA handle both developer escrow and Mollak audits?
Yes. NUFCA is approved on the DLD auditor roster for both developer escrow account audits under Law No. 8 of 2007 and jointly owned property Mollak audits under Law No. 6 of 2019.
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Need RERA approved auditors in UAE?
Get in touch with Nadeem and Umendra Chartered Accountants and we can talk through your project, the documentation you will need and a realistic timeline for the audit.
