Originally Posted by peterh

Here's some info on Palm service charges, based on my own experience. I think these charges are very hign and I am not the only one.

I own a park facing appartment on The Palm Jumeirah. During handover I had to pay, the following:-

Owners Assoc Admin Fund 6900

Owners Assoc Sinking Fund 2,200

Master Community Admin Fund 1,999

Master Community Sinking Fund 1,999

What I did not realise, until I questioned the figures, was that this was the charges for the rest of this year, I.E. for FIVE months, not a full year. Many owners are going to get a shock in January when they receive an annual bill.

So, the above works out at over 2600 Dirums per month, which is bad enough, but then I am told the Air Con (Con being the appropriate word) is ANOTHER 7000 Dirums per year. So thats over 3000 Dirums per month service charge, which is much more expensive than an appartment I have in London's Mayfair with more facilities and does not look over a building site that was supposed to be a canal!

Connection of utility services to my Palm appartment is of course extra and no one at Nakheel can tell me what 2008 service charges will be.

These service charges so high they cannot be justified. It is disappointing to be let down like this and it also relefects badly on the developer and Dubai's emerging property market.

Confidence in the market and resale values will suffer if
1) service charges are not reasonable
2) and are not published in advance
3) developers make significant changes to developments, for example changing a canal in to a 'park' without discussing this with customers first.

I say this as a property investor as well as an owner on The Palm.

I plan to raise the issue of excessive service charges with Nakheel and have joined forces with several other owners. Please contact me if you would like to join us.

Peter