Start with the fee stack, not the price
On a standard resale purchase you should budget roughly 6.4% of the price in fees: 4% plus AED 580 to the Dubai Land Department, 2% plus VAT to your brokerage, AED 5,250 for sales progression and AED 4,200 in trustee office admin.
With a mortgage, add a valuation of around AED 3,000 and mortgage registration of 0.25% of the loan plus AED 290. Bank arrangement fees sit on top and vary by product.
Then subtract only what the bank actually funds
Lenders fund a percentage of the purchase price — not the fees. Fees are always cash from you. On a AED 5m purchase at 80% loan-to-value, the bank sends AED 4m and you arrive with AED 1m of equity plus roughly AED 330,000 of fees.
Above AED 5m the maximum loan-to-value drops, so the downpayment steps from 20% to 30%. Buyers who cross that line late in a negotiation are the ones who get caught short.
Sequence it
Deposit and agency fees fall at Form F. Valuation and bank fees fall during underwriting. DLD, trustee and mortgage registration fall on transfer day itself. Mapping the dates is usually more useful than mapping the totals.
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