Mauritian saves 400 Dubai investors

Dubai’s real estate regulator has intervened in a real estate dispute involving investors in a newly completed residential scheme who claimed they were hit with extra costs on handover that in some cases almost doubled the original price of their property. They said they were angry and anxious, as they were unable to pay the additional cost and would never have agreed to purchase their properties had they known they would be hit with substantial extra costs, including the hike in service charges the amendment incurs. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"19388","attributes":{"class":"media-image size-full wp-image-33366 alignleft","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"250","height":"250","alt":"Yousouf Jhugroo"}}]]UK-based compliance expert Yousouf Jhugroo, a member of the Mauritian Diaspora, who is also an investor in Hanover Square and chairman of the Property Investors Consortium (PIC), which he set up to represent aggrieved investors in delayed off-plan schemes around the world, said he met with representatives of the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA) and ACW at separate meetings last month and asked for action to be taken to appease investors. He represented as many as half of 400-odd investors in ACW Holding’s Hanover Square development in Jumeirah Village. Yousouf Jhugroo said the costs being demanded were “exorbitant” and that some of the size amendments represented “material increases that should be the developer’s liability, not the investors’”. Shortly afterwards, a handful of investors said they had been contacted last week and informed they no longer have to pay the full cost of the size increase following an intervention by Rera. PIC, which started its operations in London in early May this year, is still working on its official launch. Formerly Director of the Institute for Consumer Protection (ICP) in Mauritius, Yousouf Jhugroo also heads the Compliance and Risk Consultancy Ltd in London.