Just ask yourself, why would you buy when the charges may be as high as 100k per year for maintenance…
Homeowners in The Cove development in Ras al Khaimah could each face service bills of more than Dh100,000 (US$27,226) a year because the developer must rely on generators to provide power to the luxury resort.
That is more than the average cost of renting a villa in the emirate, which has been beset by acute electricity shortages.
“If they are running the airconditioning during the month, they are having a bill of Dh3000 to Dh4000 a month,” said Ashraf al Agamawy, the manager of the project, which includes a five-star Rotana Hotel.
“We don’t get electricity from the Government and are running over eight diesel generators, which is very expensive.
The Cove in Ras Al Khaimah
It costs me about Dh2.5 million per month.”
The Cove was launched in April 2005 by Orascom Hotels and Development, one of Egypt’s largest developers. It comprises 78 apartments and 188 villas, 75 of which were sold under a form of timeshare agreement with the Rotana Hotel.
Under timeshare agreements, owners are allowed to use their villas for a maximum of four weeks a year…SOURCE
Residents have raised doubts about the new law brought in to prevent developers from imposing huge hikes in maintenance fees.
Instead of developers being able to set yearly increases in maintenance fees, any increase will now need to be approved first by the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (Rera), according to a regulation issued on Sunday.
However for many, maintenance fees are required to be paid at the beginning of January every year.
It is not clear whether increases announced for this year will be forced back to last year’s rate, or whether the ruling is applicable from now on.
“On the whole, this ruling is tremendous. However, there are several question marks remaining,” said Hamid Hamri, chairman of the Owners Association in Jumeirah Beach Resort (JBR).The area has seen maintenance fee increases of 129 per cent.
“It is not clear whether this year’s increase will be put down to the previous amount,” he said. According to strata law enacted by Rera, service charge increases should be scrutinised and approved by the respective owners’ associations before being enforced.
However, few developers have registered owners associations despite a requirement from Rera that they do so.
The regulation means that service charge increases will be now be calculated by Rera based on a formula that “will seek to strike a balance between the expenditure shouldered by the developers and the quality of services received by the owners”, according to state news agency Wam.
“The service charges are no longer subject to the developers’ calculations and their desire to turn them into a profit-making tool,” Marwan Bin Ghalita, Director-General of Rera, was quoted as having said…SOURCE
The aftershocks of the global financial meltdown could shrink the GCC labour market by up to 30 per cent, according to an expert.
Dr Baqer Al Najjar, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bahrain, who was attending the 14th annual three-day conference on “Human Resources and Development in the Arabian Gulf”, told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the conference that the labour market in the GCC as a whole could see up to 30 per cent of its workers laid off, with the construction sector hardest hit.
“The job market in the Gulf countries is badly affected in real estate, construction, service, retail and wholesale sectors. The construction sector could reduce workers by up to 40 per cent due to the downturn,” Al Najjar said.
His opinion was echoed by other scholars at the conference who were unanimous in the view that the situation would take at least three years to stabilise…SOURCE
12/18/2008 10:41 AM | By Shakir Husain, Staff Reporter
Dubai: Al Shafar General Contracting, a Dubai-based construction company on Wednesday said it will cut between 500 and 1,000 construction site and office jobs as new projects become harder to get.
The company’s chief executive officer Bishoy Azmi told Gulf News most of the job losses involve staff still under probation.
He said the company had hired them expecting “aggressive expansion” but construction has slowed down. The company employs about 15,000 people and has Dh6 billion worth of projects under way.
“We can manage ongoing work without adding new staff. The amount of new projects has significantly reduced,” Azmi said.
The planned layoffs will be carried out in the next two months, he said.
