Subletting in Dubai and the Landlord's Consent

The relationship between landlords and tenants in Dubai is governed by Law No. 26 of 2007 as amended by Law No. 33 of 2008. That law treats the tenancy as a personal arrangement between a named landlord and a named tenant registered on the Ejari contract. Bringing a third party into the property — whether by assigning the whole lease or by subletting part of it — changes who actually occupies and uses the property, so the law reserves that decision to the landlord and requires the consent to be in writing.

Two words in the article matter. "Written" means a verbal nod, a text message the landlord later denies, or the agent's informal blessing is not enough — the safe form is a signed, dated consent that identifies the property and the sub-tenant. And "unless the parties agree otherwise" means the original contract can settle the point in advance: some leases permit subletting freely, others ban it outright, and where the contract is silent the default in Article 24 applies. Read your own tenancy contract first; it may already answer the question.

Consent is only the first article of three. Once a sub-lease exists, Article 8 fixes how long it can last and Article 30 decides what happens to the sub-tenant if the head lease is terminated by the Rental Disputes Centre. The sections below take each article in turn, then show how they interact for landlords, tenants and sub-tenants alike.

Article 30 answers a hard question: what happens to the person living under a sub-lease if the Rental Disputes Centre terminates the head lease between the landlord and the tenant? The article provides that if the Tribunal issues an award terminating the lease contract, and the property is occupied by a sub-tenant under a contract entered into with the tenant and approved by the landlord, the sub-tenant may continue to occupy the property under the terms of the sub-lease contract. In short, an approved sub-tenant is not automatically swept out when the head lease falls.

The word that carries all the weight is "approved". Article 30 protects only a sub-tenant whose sub-lease was approved by the landlord — the very written consent Article 24 requires. A sub-tenant let in without that consent has no shield here: they are an unauthorised occupant, and when the head lease ends they have no independent right to remain against the landlord. This is the practical reward for doing the consent properly, and the practical penalty for skipping it. An approved sub-tenant keeps the sub-lease terms for its remaining period; an unapproved one keeps only a claim against the tenant who let them in.

MANJAZ is a publisher and service provider, not a court and not a law firm, and it never guarantees a particular result. What we do is practical: review a tenancy file against the Article 24, 8 and 30 requirements, help draft or check a written consent and a sub-lease so the dates and scope line up, organise the documents a landlord, tenant or sub-tenant needs, and arrange certified and legal translation where a file must move between Arabic and other languages.

Whether you are a landlord asked to approve a sublet, a tenant who wants to sublet correctly, or a sub-tenant checking whether your occupancy is protected, the value is in getting the details right early: a written consent that clearly names the property and the sub-tenant, a sub-lease that respects the head-lease term, and a clean, complete file if the matter ever reaches the Rental Disputes Centre. Small errors at the consent stage are what most often decide a case later.