There are many reasons that can lead a person to change apartment in Dubai. Most of the time are economical, with tenants looking for better deals in other neighborhoods when prices increase in the most popular ones. Other times the landlord might decide to sell the apartment or move in himself, hence requests you to vacate.
The first step is to look for a new apartment and the best way to do so is to check the listings in the most popular websites like Dubizzle or Property Finder. It is a hard job and it can drive you nuts if you don’t approach it in the right way.
Once you have found the right apartment, you need to take care of various formalities and move your furniture (if any) or other personal belongings in the new place without getting lost. Here a simple list of things you should take in consideration before moving.
1- Ask for the Final Bills
Before moving in, ask your agent or the landlord to provide you with DEWA’s and Air Conditioning’s final bills. Be sure the previous tenant and/or the landlord had paid all the outstanding dues that otherwise you will be forced to clear in case you desperately need to use that service. The risk is that once you have paid, the landlord might take his time to refund you or trying to avoid paying. Do the same for the apartment you are vacating. The documents shall be handed over to the landlord for your peace of mind and in respect of the regulations.
2-Activate the utilities in your new apartment
Don’t fall for the most common scam we have luckily avoided. Many agents will propose to take care of DEWA/Air.Con/Internet/Ejari registrations for a small fee of 1,500 AED (that doesn’t include the commissions I am going to list)!!!
You can easily connect/disconnect Palm Utilities Air Conditioning with one e-mail at no fee ( I do not know about other providers). DEWA is matter of half an hour and costs 110 AED of commissions plus 2,000 AED of refundable deposit. Ejari registration costs 195 AED and it takes very little in one of the authorized typing centers. Du phone and internet connection can be relocated with 100 AED fee. Among the various utilities, Du is the one that requires more time since the Du offices in non-working hours are always very busy.
There are cheaper companies that offer to take care of all the mentioned services with as little as 500/600 AED (plus the fees and deposit costs of course). Up to you to decide if it is worth spending that amount of money in order to save some time and headache.
3 – Inform your security about you moving out/in
Before having the moving company or any other person helping you out with the furniture, ask your building security if you have to provide any document.
In some towers, indeed, it is requested to fill a form, provide a copy of the tenancy contract and a refundable security deposit of 5,000 AED in order to cover any possible damage the moving company might have done. That’s another reason why choosing the right moving company is very important not only for your furniture’s sake.
If you forget to inform the security, you might find yourself with the movers at the door and the security prohibiting them to access the building (ad it happened to a friend of mine).
4 – Choose the right moving Company
Be ready to bargain. Get quotations from at least 3/4 different companies that usually ranges from 1,000 AED to 1,300 AED for the same service: pack everything from your old apartment, transport it and unpack everything in the new apartment. Don’t be shy and ask for a discount because the rate is too high and you have received another quotation that is much cheaper (you will have always a quotation that is cheaper than the others). We bargained with all of them and dropped the price to 900 AED.
We have opted for Executive Movers, that was warmly recommended by a dear friend that was enthusiastic of their service she used a month ago circa. We packed some of our personal things by ourselves in order to have strangers looking and touching at our things but we have overdone it. In the packing frenzy we filled 4 boxes and 3 luggage of personal and delicate things.
The day the movers came, I was positively shocked. 4 Filipino came with tools, boxes and paper wrap and started packing every single piece of furniture at a speed that was incredible. Everything perfectly sealed, protected, covered, wrapped with paper and/ore bubble wrap. They dismantled bed, wardrobe and bookshelves and packed everything carefully. In 2 hours our apartment was ready for shipment.
The guys from Executive Movers are prepared and very professional. They came with boxes and all the needed tools
In the new apartment, they positioned everything at his own place, including the books in the bookshelves and the cup in the cupboards. Not even a scratch to our wardrobe or broken glass. We noticed that the same day there was another tenant moving out the tower and his moving company was one of the competitors from which we got a quotation matching the 900 AED agreed with Executive Movers. The service, however, was dramatically lower. They stored the furniture of the unfortunate tenant outside for hours, under the sun and exposed high temperature and humidity and transported it in a old and uncovered truck.
I would definitely recommend Executive Movers for your moving needs.
Kaleidoscope - Stories from Dubai and not only 