Middle East Property
Abu Dhabi registers its first off-plan mortgage at the fifty per cent payment mark
By Staff Writer | 5 September 2026
Aldar and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank have completed the emirate's first mortgage registration on an unbuilt home under a framework operated by the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre, which lets a buyer who has paid half the price name a lender on the registration certificate before handover.
Abu Dhabi has completed its first registration of a mortgage over an off-plan property. The transaction was carried out by Aldar under a framework launched by the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre, with Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank acting as the mortgage bank on the opening transactions. The centre confirmed the completion on 4 September 2026.
The framework allows a customer who has paid 50 per cent of the purchase price of an eligible off-plan unit to arrange a mortgage against that unit, with the bank funding the remaining instalments and the final payment due at handover. The 50 per cent threshold is not the centre's own invention: it follows the UAE Central Bank regulation that sets the point at which a buyer becomes eligible for off-plan mortgage finance.
What actually changes at registration
The mechanical change is that the financing bank can now be named on the mortgage registration certificate before the property is handed over, with the mortgage interest recorded in the Initial Real Estate Register. Until now a buyer on an off-plan purchase arranged finance at completion, which left the rate, the terms and in some cases the willingness of any lender to be settled at the end of a construction period rather than the beginning of one.
The point of interest for anyone advising a purchaser is timing. A lender named on the register during construction is a lender whose security exists before practical completion, not one who arrives to inspect a finished unit and price the risk afresh.
The centre states three effects: the buyer has certainty over financing terms in advance, cash is preserved through the construction period, and the separate exercise of arranging a mortgage at completion disappears. It presents the arrangement as an alternative to financing arranged at handover rather than a replacement for it, giving buyers a wider set of options on rates and terms.
The completion of this registration demonstrates ADREC's off-plan mortgage registration service in live market use. By enabling mortgage interests in eligible off-plan real estate units to be recorded in the Initial Real Estate Register, the service strengthens transparency and provides greater clarity and protection for buyers, developers and financial institutions. The service is available on a market-wide basis to participating institutions that meet the relevant requirements, supporting a secure and well-regulated off-plan market in Abu Dhabi.
Ghazi Saeed Alateibi, Executive Director of the Real Estate Transaction Sector at the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre
Not a single bank arrangement
The sentence in that statement worth reading twice is the one about market-wide availability. The service is open to any participating institution that meets the relevant requirements, so the first completed registration identifies the first mover rather than the only route. Aldar said it worked with the centre and the bank to complete the first transaction, describing the result as "translating the framework into greater financing flexibility for homebuyers", and said it expects to extend the option across its wider network of banking partners.
Aldar also runs an in-house mortgage advisory service, offered to its customers without fees, which it says lets a buyer compare options from a panel of participating banks.
What has not been published
No figures have been released: not the value of the first registration, not the number of units expected to qualify, and not the list of institutions that have so far met the requirements to participate. Nor has the centre published the documentary requirements a lender must satisfy to be named on a certificate before handover, or how a registered mortgage interest is treated if the development is delayed or the sale and purchase agreement is terminated. Those are the questions a purchaser's adviser will need answered before the framework changes anything on a live transaction, and the first registration does not answer them.