City of Arabia

[financier888]

Originally Posted by bisto

I have called Galadari Group. Shuba is the person I usually talks to however, she is on holiday. So I spoke to someone else regarding Wadi Tower. Now according to this person Wadi Tower should be completed end of this year. Which I am not convinced as you guys probably are. However she has mentioned that if Wadi Tower was to be delayed it will be delayed 3 to 6 months from the end of 2009. Asked about ESCROW account, then she said YES ESCROW has been completed for Wadi Tower. Now is she saying the truth or not I am not sure. Do you guys know how can we possibly find out if an ESCROW account has been created without taking the developers word for it. and infact how can we also check if our money is in the ESCROW account, as in my case ESCROW has been created after I have made my payment. We talked about forming a group before but we never really took it any further. I strongly support this.

If she (the developers office) told you an ESCROW ACCT has been completed - she should furnish you the name of the bank and the acct number where you future payments MUST BE DEPOSITED... If they did indeed open the ESCROW acct - they should provide the details.. Request this in writing...

[tony l]

i have just become a member of this site after reading the posts for the last 8 months. i lived in dubai for 4 years and returned to the uk 9 months ago i own 3 apartments in wadi tower i have paid 45% on each one. no more payments have to be made until the 3rd floor has been built. the information on the progress is terrible but i believe city of arabia will be built. the galdari brothers have a very good name in dubai. i am returning to dubai on the 6th of march for 12 days i will visit the galdari office and the city of arabia site and post a accurate report on the progress on my return one thing for sure is no towers will be finished in the next 2 years. if i was with another developer i would be worried but i have faith with the galdaris. i have meny friends in dubai who share my view and believe city of arabia will be built.

[financier888]

Originally Posted by tony l

i have just become a member of this site after reading the posts for the last 8 months. i lived in dubai for 4 years and returned to the uk 9 months ago i own 3 apartments in wadi tower i have paid 45% on each one. no more payments have to be made until the 3rd floor has been built. the information on the progress is terrible but i believe city of arabia will be built. the galdari brothers have a very good name in dubai. i am returning to dubai on the 6th of march for 12 days i will visit the galdari office and the city of arabia site and post a accurate report on the progress on my return one thing for sure is no towers will be finished in the next 2 years. if i was with another developer i would be worried but i have faith with the galdaris. i have meny friends in dubai who share my view and believe city of arabia will be built.

What you say about the Galadari brothers is true but you need to check on a project by project basis - considering that the govt linked companies are having tough times... Many of these firms have poor investor relations which hopefully will change..

[sgmasey]

Originally Posted by stu

Is anyone like me living in UK, if so have you had any legal advice from a professional,if so can anyone recommend one. In meantime i will keep trying for answers from MED,if cant get any satisfaction from them looks like need to start getting some professional advice to be sure about our deposits.Giving it another week with emails to MED if no joy then if anyone wants to put together for lawyer then let me know.Its the only way left if we cant get any answers.

I'm UK based and like you Stu have not sort professional legal advice to date, but feel that now is the time.

What would be great is if someone on this forum could strongly recommend a lawyer and maybe we could get together and share the costs.

If anyone else is interested then the more the merrier, but I agree with you 100% I think we have all been "led up the garden path" for a very long time and now we need some definitive answers.

[DAYFox]

Ok, sounds good to me!

Lets collect all email adresses and start an email communication from all who are interested in legal advise and willing to share the costs! If we all group up together it will first not cost much and second should be of our all interest to get some straight answers and put some pressure on them -even though Galadari are nice people... who cares? Can u pay ur bills out of that? Honestly...

Originally Posted by sgmasey

I'm UK based and like you Stu have not sort professional legal advice to date, but feel that now is the time.

What would be great is if someone on this forum could strongly recommend a lawyer and maybe we could get together and share the costs.

If anyone else is interested then the more the merrier, but I agree with you 100% I think we have all been "led up the garden path" for a very long time and now we need some definitive answers.

[DAYFox]

One post from another forum I just received on my question if it is possible to resell my Unit at COA now. Please have a look at the answer, it matches to my experiences with Galadari unfortunately...

Dayfox I too am in investor in COA and I would say it has been by far my worst investment. I have been quiet on this forum because I didn't want to badmouth my own investment but at this juncture it doesn't matter anymore.

The way the Galadaris have managed this project is a joke. They are incompetent. I have been dealing with them since 2005 and their customer service people are friendly enough but they only repeat misinformation and don't really answer your questions.

They have supposedly been doing piling work since 2006 and are always going to announce their main contractor for the towers in the next couple of weeks. This has been their standard response for 3 years now!!

What was your original price? I am guessing around AED 700 per sq ft. Just to give you an idea right now you can buy good quality completed residential flats in JLT for AED 800 per sq ft.

So I doubt there would be any demand at your original price for essentially sand in a less desirable area (Emirates Road vs. Sheikh Zayed road). If you can find a buyer (and that's a huge if) I would be surprised if you could sell for more than AED 550 per sq ft given the current market and that proper work on Wadi Tower has still not started after 3 years.

Wadi Tower does have an advantage because at least it is a registered project with RERA and has an escrow account. Unfortunately past payments are not being transferred to that account, only future payments (I got this directly info from Galadari office) One plus is that Wadi Tower finally has a contractor lined up as of a few weeks ago.

I bought a small commercial unit in COA at around AED 700 per sq ft pre-launch. But I came to the realization that the COA project was mismanaged a long, long time back.

Hence I have been trying to sell my unit for even AED 800 per sq ft for 2 years even when the real estate market was booming (commercial in JLT hit AED 2,000 per sq ft and Business Bay hit AED 3,500 per sq ft). I listed with multiple agents and never got one serious inquiry, even though I indicated even the AED 800 per sq ft was negotiable. And remember this was during the boom time.

Off-the-record the real estate agents told me everybody knew that the Galadaris didn't have the management expertise in place to execute such a large project and savvy buyers in the market knew that and steered clear of this project. The Galadaris had big problems with getting contractors to even bid for their tenders, and then those bids came in too high because of escalating material and labour costs.

Basically the Mall of Arabia (because it is so lucrative) will be built but the rest of COA is up in the air. The payments people have made for Wadi Walk and the various towers (Wadi, Metro, I&M, etc.) have been diverted and used for infrastructure work and for the Mall.

Anyway I rescheduled all my payments a long time back so now I only pay on completion. If they build it great; hopefully the market recovers in the next few years, and I get my money back. If they don't build it well then at least I don't throw good money after bad. Best case scenario is they cancel my tower and refund me my payments to date.

Your options:
1) Try to sell back to Galadaris at below cost.
2) Reschedule payments so balance is on completion, then try to sell on secondary market at well below original price.
3) Take your case to RERA.
4) Walk away from a bad investment and default.

[KHAN98]

Hi,
i am a new member, i have invested in med project arabian crown

[KHAN98]

HI,

I Request to all the Inverters IN MED PROJECTS ARABIAN CROWN AND WINDSOR
to join together and make a representation to them and force them to transfer our down payment to an Escrow Account. I am not worried about the delay in construction, but I am worried about the Down Payment ( 30 % ).
Seeing the situation world wise, there is no problem in delays, but MED should contact us and assure us about the safety of our Investment, which they failed to do.

[zhouguoyaogeorge]

[stu]

Originally Posted by KHAN98

HI,

I Request to all the Inverters IN MED PROJECTS ARABIAN CROWN AND WINDSOR
to join together and make a representation to them and force them to transfer our down payment to an Escrow Account. I am not worried about the delay in construction, but I am worried about the Down Payment ( 30 % ).
Seeing the situation world wise, there is no problem in delays, but MED should contact us and assure us about the safety of our Investment, which they failed to do.

I totally agree, we need some security from MED that our deposits are safe...also emailed MED twice in last week to confirm if Windsor is on hold but no reply.They also sent me the same letter that was posted on this forum today,they stated that they would be happy to show clients the site after 15th march 2009 but when i email to get an appointment for april they replied and said it would not be safe due to health and saftey. Always excuses because there is nothing to see.So in view of this i am all for getting together to see if we can secure our investment.. but isnt it against forum rules to pass on personel details such as email address etc...any suggestions on how we can go about this.