Guidance on what to do if your apartment size is in correct.( Size Does Matter) !

[wayneis]

The below comments are kindly re posted from one of our members who has apartments in International City. Thank's again Blinkybill

Information may be of assistance to those who take possession of their apartment and find the size is different from what they expected.


Originally Posted by blinkybill

It's been tedious, but we have an acknowedgement from Nakheel that there is an error in the size of our unit.

We went many times to the sales office - each time we had to stamp our feet and insist on seeing someone. We were tossed around a few different departments before we found anyne helpful. Finally, we got to speak to the PA to the manager of the unit registration department. She is an American named Elaine, and she is helpful and has a bit of clout. With her influence, our case was referred to the design team, to check the measurements against the plans. We met with them in their office in the Gardens.

It turns out that our unit is above the electricity substation room, which has walls that extend beyond the boundary of the rest of the building. The floor area was calculated from that room and copied to the units on each floor above it. So, the error only affected 3 units in our building (109, 209 & 309).

They gave us some plans for the building, and a list of all the gross and net sizes for each unit in our building. The gross size is used in apportioning the service charges. We're still chasing a refund of the extra service charge we paid (around 900Dhs), but we've been assured that the affection plan will reflect the true floor size. (We were told the affection plans are not yet prepared).

Our measurements are in line with the plans shown in the USPA. It should be noted that the net floor size includes at least part of the wall on each side.

It's OK if you want to pass this info to other members, or post it. We're not currently in Dubai, but we have names and details there, and can share it via PM when we return, if it would help anyone.

regards

Blinkybill also clarified the following

We have claimed a refund of the excess service charge by taking the floor size of the unit opposite us - it has exactly the same dimensions as our unit. We've taken that figure from the architect's data, which were used to calculate the original service charge.

As for the affection plan, we left with the impression that nobody's affection plan had been prepared yet, at least for those units that had been released this year. We were assured that when the plan was lodged with the land registry, it would reflect the correct floor size. That was a couple of months ago now, so maybe things have moved along a bit. There's nothing to say that we, as unit owners, would be advised when the affection plans are ready and the land registry entries finalised. This would probably need a specific enquiry to either Nakheel's unit registration department, or to the government land registry.