Nakheel’s Battles with Property Owners Continue

Nakheel took another decision in Palm Jumeirah Island that has spread discontentment among the residents. This time it was the pools that were drained by Nakheel over the service charges issues with the owners as Nakheel claims that still an amount of AED 15 million was owed to it by the owners. The most affected of this decision are the tenants who are neither responsible for what owners have done to Nakheel nor are liable to pay them anything in this regard as it is owner’s responsibility to pay such service charges, yet are being deprived of this facility.

This has given seed to new speculations and dissatisfactions among the residents. They think that Nakheel might not allow them to access gyms and elevators also as a next step if service charges are not paid by the owners.

The battle between Nakheel and the property owners has been going on ever since 1300 residents were denied the access to gyms and beaches at Shoreline Apartments six months ago in December, 2011. At that time, Nakheel had claimed that AED 72 million were still not being paid by the owners to Nakheel. The company that has already been facing financial crises was heavily criticized over the decision of denying the residents’ access to these services.

The chairman of Al Habtoor group, Mr. Khalaf Al Habtoor also criticized the decision by saying that if anybody is told after buying a property that he has to pay additional charges for using the beach, he would retaliate. He also believed that the state was innocent of all these issues and such things are only damaging the country’s repute in the international market. He didn’t think that the higher authorities had any idea of the problem and believed that the issue would not be under their notices.