If a tenancy addendum goes round by courier to a landlord abroad and the tenant is waiting on the keys, this is for you. This is not for you if nobody owns the lease file after it is signed: name that person first, because no signing method helps without one.
What is a rental agreement in Dubai, and who registers it?
A rental agreement in Dubai is the tenancy contract between the landlord and the tenant. It is registered with the Dubai Land Department (DLD) as an Ejari record. The registration is the step nobody can speed up with a link. The papers around it are your own.
DLD's Dubai Now service page, read on 3 November 2026, lists the fees to register, renew or terminate a tenancy contract through the app: AED 100 registration, AED 55 service, AED 10 knowledge, AED 10 innovation and AED 2.75 VAT on the service fee, AED 177.75 in total. It lists the service time as "Instant". Those are DLD's fees, not ours, and they can change, so read the page before you quote a client.
Who does DLD's online route cover?
Read two lines on that page before you promise a client anything. The service "allows property owners and tenants to register, renew or terminate tenancy contracts through the Dubai Now application and sign them electronically using UAE PASS." The service terms add: "Available to individuals who own and manage their own properties." It asks for a valid Emirates ID.
So the route is described for an individual owner with UAE PASS. If your landlord is a company, lives abroad or hands the unit to a manager, you cannot assume the route is open to them. Ask DLD or your trustee centre which route applies, and keep the answer in the file.
In December 2017, Gulf News reported that DLD would no longer honour some brokers' powers of attorney for unified lease contracts, and a broker said: "We send around 30 contracts via courier per month to get the original signatures. Now, depending on the owner, that could delay the whole process by four to 10 days." That is a 2017 report, not today's rule. It explains why brokerages reach for a link. Confirm what DLD requires now before you say who may sign.
Which tenancy papers can go by link?
The ones that are your own paper. Our Sign page puts the line plainly for a lease: "In Dubai the landlord still registers the contract in Ejari, on Dubai REST or at a trustee centre, and DLD decides what it accepts for registration." For brokerage forms it says your own listing and client agreements are fine, and that DLD Forms A, B and F run in DLD's own broker system.
Our longer notes cover the two papers people ask about most: renewing from abroad and the power of attorney.
How do you decide, paper by paper?
Write who relies on it. For each paper in a lease file, put one name next to it: the party that will act on it.
- 01List every paper in a typical lease file, from viewing form to key receipt.
- 02Next to each, write who relies on it: your brokerage and the signer, or DLD, a bank or a court.
- 03Only your brokerage and the signer: send it by link. DLD, a bank or a court: ask them what they take before you send, and keep the answer in the file.
Not legal advice: ask your lawyer about any paper that could end up in front of a court. The test asks about the receiver, not the tool: a paper that only you and the signer rely on needs nobody's yes but theirs.
What does a signing link leave in the file?
Each signed paper has a signed PDF and an audit log: a fingerprint of the file, each signer's email and IP address, and every step with its time. That is your record of who signed this, and when, if a tenant questions a clause.
Signers need no app and no account. The signing page switches to Arabic, right to left, when the signer's phone is set to Arabic. An Arabic and English PDF keeps both texts as you uploaded them. A stamp field or an upload field lets a signer add a company stamp or an Emirates ID copy from the phone.
Three limits. Requests go by email; to use WhatsApp you copy the signer's link and paste it yourself. There are no automatic reminders, so name one person who chases an unsigned landlord, by email or on WhatsApp, the day after the link goes out. And a signature made here is an electronic record with an audit log, not a licensed-certificate signature, so for any receiver who asks for one, ask first.
Mindcat Sign sends and records the signatures. Mindcat Vault can hold the signed lease and its expiry date.
What does it cost a brokerage?
Here is what our Sign page says today. You pay per sender a month, the people on your team who send documents. Signers are free and unlimited, with no cap on documents.
- 1 to 5 senders: AED or SAR 69 each.
- 6 to 20 senders: AED or SAR 49 each, on the senders inside that band.
- 21 to 50 senders: AED or SAR 35 each. Above 50: AED or SAR 25 each.
- The shared plan has a monthly minimum of AED or SAR 349, so one office manager does not buy a seat at AED 69.
A brokerage with 12 agents who send leases pays 5 x 69 + 7 x 49 = AED 688 a month. Quick start is a fixed AED or SAR 2,500 for up to 20 senders, and we set it up. Managed setup starts at AED or SAR 2,900.
Automatic reminders, SMS codes, bulk sending, single sign-on and your logo on the signing page come from a paid upstream licence, quoted at cost before you sign. Prices exclude 5 percent UAE VAT and 15 percent Saudi VAT.
How do we decide?
Our method is called one link per signer, and the first step is the sort above. On the first call we take a typical lease file and write who relies on each paper. Two piles come out: what goes by link, and what stays with DLD, a bank or a notary. You get a written plan, a go-live date and the monthly price.
If every paper in your file is one that DLD or a bank must see, we say stay on what you have. If your agents also send addenda, handover sheets and client agreements by courier or WhatsApp, tell us what you send and who signs it. Mindcat Sign is built on DocuSeal, licensed under AGPL-3.0. See also how a brokerage handles offer letters by link, and the wider fit on our real estate brokers page.
