Buying Off-Plan in Dubai? Check Your Flat's Progress Before the Next Instalment
The email arrives on a Tuesday evening in London: the next 10 percent on your Dubai flat is due in two weeks. The newest thing anyone has sent you is a drone clip of the tower at sunset, which proves a building is going up but says nothing about whether your floor has reached the stage you are about to pay for, and that is a lot of money to send on a feeling.
Most buyers look up the completion percentage on the Dubai Land Department's website and stop there, although that figure describes the whole project on the day it was last updated, which may have been the summer. Check it and note its date, then ask your developer for a dated 360° walk of your own floor from the fortnight before the due date. If your instalments are tied to construction stages, also ask for the approved consultant's letter confirming the stage.
The percentage matters more than it looks, because Khaleej Times set out on 10 October what a Dubai developer can do when a buyer defaults. Under Article 11 of Law No. 13 of 2008, the developer first notifies the Dubai Land Department (DLD), the buyer then has 30 days to settle, and if the contract is ended, how much the developer may keep depends on how complete the project is, up to 40 percent once it is past 60 percent. The one number you can't see for yourself therefore decides how much you stand to lose as well as when you get your keys, and you can check most of what matters in an evening, from wherever you live.
What the official percentage tells you, and what it can't
The Dubai Land Department's Project Status Enquiry lets anyone, whatever their residency, look up a registered project's completion percentage and details by land number, project number or project name, on the department's website or its official app. Its FAQ adds that the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) reviews registered projects periodically and asks developers to update their completion rates. That makes the figure the right place to start, because it comes from the regulator's own records, although it describes the whole project as of its last update, so it can't tell you how far your own floor has come or what has happened on site since the date beside it.
Is your payment plan tied to stages or to dates?
Read the payment schedule in your sale and purchase agreement first, because the answer changes what any check can do for you. Where instalments are tied to construction stages, the department's FAQ says you can answer a payment request by asking for a letter from the DLD-approved project consultant confirming the current completion percentage, and that you aren't obliged to pay until the stage in your schedule is confirmed. The same FAQ says you can ask the regulator's technical auditor for a report on the percentage of completion, for a fee of AED 15,000 per unit.
Where instalments fall on fixed dates, the dates are what your contract counts, so the checks below tell you how the build is going without changing when a payment is due, and if the two look far apart, take your contract and payment record to a property lawyer in Dubai.
- 15 Mar 2026Instalment 4 · 10%Level 14 slab cast, seen from the stair coreWalk · 9 Mar
- 15 May 2026Instalment 5 · 10%First blockwork walls of the unit set outWalk · 8 May
- 15 Jul 2026Instalment 6 · 10%Walls of the unit up to window-sill heightWalk · 7 Jul
- 15 Sep 2026Instalment 7 · 10%Window openings formed, lintels in placeWalk · 12 Sep
- 30 Oct 2026Instalment 8 · 10%Walls closed above the windows, from the same spots as SeptemberWalk · 24 Oct
What to ask your developer for before each instalment
The official figure and the consultant's letter speak for the whole project, whereas what you want to see is your own floor, so send one request to the developer's customer team about a month before each due date, which gives the site team time to plan the walk.
- A 360° walk of your floor and its corridor, dated within the fortnight before the instalment falls due, that opens by link in a browser.
- The same route and viewpoints on every walk, so this month's view sits next to last month's at the same spot.
- The floor plan with the walk's path drawn on it, so you know which unit you are looking at.
- Any change to the expected handover date in writing, with the reason and the new date.
With those in hand, each transfer goes out with your floor on screen, and you become the buyer who pays knowing what the money is for.
Good evening. Your floor was walked this morning along the same route as on 12 September. Open the link to see unit 14-06 on the floor plan and put the two dates side by side before instalment 8 on 30 October.
Five ways to check progress before you pay
Each check answers a different question, and before a stage payment you may want two of them side by side.
| Check | What it shows | What it can't show | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| DLD project status | The whole project's completion percentage, from the regulator's records | Your floor, or anything since the last update | Before every instalment, at no cost |
| Approved consultant's letter | The completion percentage, confirmed in writing | What your floor looks like | When a stage-linked instalment is requested |
| RERA technical auditor's report | An independent report on the percentage of completion | Your floor on the day you pay, and it costs AED 15,000 per unit | When the figure and the site seem far apart |
| A dated 360° walk from the developer | Your floor on a known date, next to the previous walk | Concrete strength, or anything a camera can't see | Before every instalment, next to the official figure |
| Photos and drone clips from the sales team | Real activity on site | Where on the plan they were taken, and when | A sign the site is busy |
If you're the developer selling these flats
Buyers abroad are now being advised to check every update against the official progress figure before they pay, so the request for photos before a transfer will reach your customer team whether you plan for it or not. The developers who come out of it well send a dated walk of each buyer's floor before anyone asks, because a buyer who can see their own floor on a known date has nothing left to chase, and the walk shows that the work is where you say it is. It costs the site team one walk along the same route each cycle, and how to send construction updates buyers trust sets out the routine.
Where SpatialSense fits
SpatialSense sits on the developer's side of this, because the walk is recorded by the site team with the Trace app and a 360° camera on a helmet. It opens in a browser with its path drawn on the floor plan, and in Video Mode every frame carries a timestamp, so the date on the walk is the date it was recorded. The developer sends you a share link that opens without a login, chooses what the link shows and can revoke it later, and any two dates open side by side from one locked viewpoint, with SpatialSense finding the nearest matching photo on the other date, so you compare the same corner of the same room in September and October.
A walk works next to the official checks and replaces none of them, because the consultant's letter is still the document a stage-linked schedule refers to and a camera can't tell you the strength of a slab. What it adds is your own floor between updates, the same kind of dated record a project team uses to tell whether a build is on schedule before a slip turns up in someone else's report.
Capture. Understand. Take Action.
See SpatialSense on your project
If you build or sell off-plan homes in Dubai, you can run the full platform free for 30 days on one project with no card, uploading 360° photos from your own camera in the browser, and send your buyers a dated walk of their floor before the next instalment cycle. Support is 24/7 and one to one, from a person at Kodifly. If you are the buyer, forward this page to your developer's customer team with your next due date on it.
SpatialSense isn't only for big projects, and you don't need to learn every part of it to use it, because on a custom plan you can take the 360° viewer on its own. Book a demo and we'll go through the details with you.
FAQ
How do I check the construction status of an off-plan project in Dubai?
Use the Dubai Land Department's Project Status Enquiry on its website or official app, searching by land number, project number or project name, and note when the completion percentage was last updated.
How often is the DLD project completion percentage updated?
The service page doesn't publish a schedule. The department's FAQ says the Real Estate Regulatory Agency reviews projects periodically and asks developers to update completion rates, so check the date beside the figure before you rely on it.
Do I have to pay an off-plan instalment if construction is behind?
It depends on your payment plan. For stage-linked instalments, the DLD's FAQ says you can ask for the approved consultant's letter confirming the stage and aren't obliged to pay until it is confirmed, whereas fixed-date instalments follow the contract, so ask a property lawyer about your case.
Can I check my Dubai off-plan property's progress from abroad?
Yes. The DLD's project status service is open whatever your residency, and your developer can share a dated 360° walk of your floor by link.