# Legality of House sharing



## dangran90 (Jun 20, 2014)

Hi guys,

i was wondering if you can enlighten me to the situation out there and possibly debunk some rumours.

Some close friends and I have been hired by the same company that require us to move to Abu Dhabi. We are all male and working professionals though recently we have heard that any kind of flat sharing/ house sharing is illegal.

I can't seem to find any clarification on the internet to this, though it looks like possibly that Dubai is more stringent that AD on this topic.

Any help would be much appreciated.


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## AlexDhabi (Aug 23, 2012)

Technically sharing is illegal, as only the person named on the lease and his/her family can live in the accommodation. It is still quite common in both AD and Dubai.


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## dangran90 (Jun 20, 2014)

AlexDhabi said:


> Technically sharing is illegal, as only the person named on the lease and his/her family can live in the accommodation. It is still quite common in both AD and Dubai.


Thanks for the response. Do people not check up on it, or how do people get away with it?


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## AlexDhabi (Aug 23, 2012)

It depends, but it is rare. There have been official crack-downs in the past, especially in villas or apartments that have been split into smaller accommodation units (little notice and no refund of rent paid). Sometimes landlords will use illegal sharing as a reason for eviction or large rent increases. 
The biggest potential issue is at time of renewing visas (but this depends mainly on who your employer is whether this will affect you) where may have to provide proof of where you are living in the form of a rental contract and those not named on the contract will have a problem. To get round this people stay in a serviced apartment for a few weeks around visa renewal time.


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## dangran90 (Jun 20, 2014)

Yeah I had heard about the issue with people subdividing a house. So what would be the likelihood of being able to get a 3/4 bedroom house/flat/villa/apartment with the agent or landlord knowing it will be 3/4 separate unrelated individuals rather than a family?

Cheers for all the advice so far


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## AlexDhabi (Aug 23, 2012)

Many landlords and agents turn a blind eye to it, although you will never get anything in writing from them to say you can sub-let. As you will have seen from earlier comments, sharing is not unusual.


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