Off-plan
What an escrow account is for in an off-plan purchase, why payments do not go straight to the developer, and what to check before you pay a deposit.
Buying a unit before it is built means paying for something that does not exist yet, which is why UAE off-plan sales run through an escrow account rather than the developer's own bank account. This guide explains the principle behind the mechanism and what a buyer can check before paying a deposit, without stating a specific regulator, law number, or release percentage that would need a dated source. This guide is one part of a broader step-by-step buyer's guide to purchasing property in the UAE.
When a buyer pays for an off-plan unit, the money does not go directly into the developer's general account. Instead, it is held in a separate account tied to that specific project. This separates the buyer's payment from the developer's day-to-day finances, so the money set aside for building one project cannot be spent on another project or on unrelated business expenses.
Funds in the escrow account are not handed to the developer all at once. They are released in stages as the project's construction progress is confirmed, rather than the full amount being available as soon as a buyer pays. This ties the developer's access to cash to actual building progress, which is the core of the protection: a stalled or abandoned project also stalls the developer's access to the buyer's money.
The mechanism addresses one specific risk, a developer spending buyers' money on something other than the project it was paid for, or losing access to it before construction reaches the stage that was paid for. It is a separate safeguard from the buyer's title itself: escrow protection concerns the money already paid, not a guarantee that the project will finish on the buyer's expected timeline or that a specific unit will be delivered as described.
A buyer should confirm that the specific project is registered with the Dubai Land Department (DLD) and has an escrow account linked to it before transferring any money, rather than paying a developer's sales team directly on trust. DLD's Project Status Enquiry service (also called Mashrooi) lets a buyer look up a specific project by name and see its registration status, completion percentage, developer details, and escrow account and bank details (data checked 11 September 2026, source below). The exact percentage of funds released to the developer at each construction stage is not published on this service and is not stated here.
This guide explains the principle and, per the Dubai Land Department source above, where to check a project's registration and escrow account, but not the specific governing law article or the percentage of funds released at each construction stage, which are not stated here. For the order of steps in a purchase, see the deal steps guide; to estimate total costs, use the calculators section.
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