Who pays for AC maintenance in a Dubai rental?

The principle: maintenance versus damage

Dubai tenancy practice draws its line between two ideas rather than between two lists. Maintenance — keeping equipment in the condition it was handed over in — sits with the landlord. Damage or misuse by the occupant sits with the tenant. Almost every dispute we are called into is really an argument about which side of that line a particular fault falls on.

In practice, Law No. 26 of 2007 and its amendment place responsibility for maintenance with the landlord unless the tenancy contract explicitly says otherwise. That last clause is where most of the confusion originates, because a great many Dubai contracts do say otherwise — and say it vaguely.

What contracts usually shift, and how

The most common arrangement is a value threshold: the tenant covers repairs below a stated figure, often between AED 500 and AED 1,000 per incident, and the landlord covers anything above it. A second common clause makes the tenant responsible for routine AC servicing while the landlord retains responsibility for major component failure — compressors, coils, motors.

Both are legitimate if they are written down clearly. The problem arises when the clause says something like 'tenant responsible for maintenance' without defining whether that includes a failed compressor, which is a five-figure difference of opinion waiting to happen.

The practical rule of thumb

If the fault is the result of ordinary use over time — a coil that has fouled, a capacitor that has aged, refrigerant that has slowly leaked from a joint — it is maintenance, and absent a clear contrary clause it belongs to the landlord. If the fault is the result of something the occupant did or failed to do — filters never cleaned across two years, a drain blocked by something introduced, physical damage to a unit — it belongs to the tenant.

Routine servicing is the grey middle. Our view, and the one that causes the fewest arguments, is that scheduled servicing is best held by the landlord as part of protecting the asset, with the tenant obliged to allow access and report faults promptly.

What to do before signing

Read the maintenance clause specifically and ask for a number if there is a threshold. Ask whether annual AC servicing is included and who arranges it. Photograph the condition of the AC units at handover, including the interior of the filters — this is the single most useful five minutes a tenant can spend, and it settles most end-of-tenancy disagreements without discussion.

Landlords: an annual maintenance contract is the cleanest answer available. It removes the argument entirely, produces documented visit records, and protects the equipment you own from the two years of neglect that an unclear clause invites.

If you are already in dispute

Establish first what the contract actually says rather than what either party assumed. Then get an independent written assessment of the cause of the fault — a technician's report distinguishing wear from misuse is what converts an argument into a fact. The Rental Disputes Centre handles cases that cannot be resolved, but the overwhelming majority settle once a competent report exists.

We provide that report as a matter of course on every visit, precisely because so many of our call-outs sit in the middle of this conversation. It is not a service we charge extra for; it is what a documented visit is for.