What TAS is, and why it exists

The Trust Account System (TAS) is the Dubai Land Department's escrow framework for off-plan property sales. Instead of a developer receiving a buyer's payment directly, funds are held in a dedicated project trust account and released only as construction reaches defined milestones. It exists specifically to protect buyers from the risk of a project stalling after payments have already been made — a real concern in the years before RERA introduced escrow requirements.

How milestone-based disbursement works

Each registered project has a construction schedule broken into stages — foundation, structure, finishing, and so on. As an independent engineering consultant certifies that a stage is complete, the developer can request disbursement of the corresponding percentage of funds held in the trust account. The trustee bank verifies the certification before releasing anything, so payment flow is tied to verified physical progress, not to a fixed calendar.

What a developer needs to manage this well

  • Accurate, up-to-date payment plan records matched against each buyer's contract
  • Timely engineering certification submitted at each construction milestone
  • Reconciliation between the trust account balance, disbursement requests, and the project budget
  • Clean documentation, since RERA and the trustee bank can both request an audit trail

Where this connects to unit and project registration

TAS compliance isn't separate from a project's registration — the trust account is tied to the project's RERA registration, and individual unit sales are recorded against it as they're registered. A gap or error in one tends to surface as a problem in the other, which is why we handle project registration, TAS management, and unit registration as one continuous administrative thread rather than three disconnected tasks.

Note: Escrow account structures, certification requirements, and disbursement percentages are set by RERA and can be updated. This guide describes how the system works in principle — confirm current requirements for a specific project against official RERA guidance.

How we help

We set up and manage the TAS on a developer's behalf — coordinating with the trustee bank, tracking milestone certifications, reconciling the trust account against the payment plan, and preparing the documentation RERA and the bank require at each disbursement request.