Service charges: your first bill, explained
Somewhere in your first year of ownership, a bill arrives that no one mentioned at the sales office: the service charge. It is not a scam, not optional, and not the developer improvising — it is the regulated cost of running the building you now co-own a piece of. Here is what it funds, who checks the numbers, and what to do when a bill doesn't look right.
What you're actually paying for
A tower doesn't clean, cool, guard, insure or repair itself. Service charges fund the shared machinery of the building: cleaning and security staff, lift and pool maintenance, common-area utilities and cooling, landscaping, building insurance, the management company's fee, and a reserve fund — the long-term pot for the expensive days when the facade needs work or a chiller needs replacing. Owners pay in proportion to the size of their unit; skipping the bill isn't an option, and unpaid charges follow the unit.
Who sets the number: Mollak and RERA
Service charge budgets in Dubai are not set on the honour system. The regulator's platform, Mollak, is the official system through which building budgets are reviewed and service-charge invoices are issued — budgets are audited, approved and then billed through it, which is why your invoice arrives as a formal, regulated document rather than a letter from the developer. If a "service charge" request reaches you outside that formal channel, treat it with suspicion and ask the management company to point at the approved budget behind it.
Why your neighbour's rate is different
Charges are set per square foot per year, and the rate varies widely from building to building. The drivers are mostly obvious once named: a full-amenity tower with pools, gyms, concierge and acres of air-conditioned lobby costs more to run per square foot than a low-rise with a lobby and a lift; apartments and villas sit on different cost structures entirely; and district-cooled buildings carry cooling economics of their own. So resist comparing your rate to a friend's across town as if the difference itself proves mismanagement — the honest comparison is against buildings like yours, and against what was approved for yours.
Checking the rate: the RERA index
You don't have to take the number on faith. RERA maintains a service charge index where the approved rates can be checked — meaning you can verify that what you're billed matches what the regulator actually signed off for your building. Reading your invoice against the approved rate is the single most useful ten minutes a new owner can spend on this topic, and it turns any later dispute from a feeling into a document.
When the bill looks wrong
- Start with the owners' association management company — in writing. Ask them to reconcile the invoice against the approved budget and your unit's area. Billing errors (wrong area, wrong rate, duplicated line items) happen, and most are resolved at this step.
- Escalate to RERA if the answers don't hold up. As the regulator of service charges and the body behind the approved budgets, RERA is the formal escalation path when the management company can't justify what it billed. Bring the paper trail — the invoice, the approved rate, and your written exchange.
- Keep paying attention annually. Budgets are approved year by year; a building that was cheap to run at handover can drift. The first bill sets your baseline — file it.
What we publish today — and what's coming
Today our area pages cover the revenue side of ownership — real sale prices and real Ejari rents. Per-building service-charge comparison is the missing third column, and it is something we plan to publish as our data grows; we'd rather ship it accurate than fast, so we won't promise a date. Until then, the honest tools are the ones above: your invoice, the approved rate, and a management company that can explain the difference.
Related: sale prices and rents by area · when a project stalls before handover · how our numbers are made
General information, not legal or financial advice.