How we verify a title, and what we refuse to list
Every listing is walked, photographed and checked against the owner's papers. Here is what that involves, and the three findings that end it.
Every listing is walked
Before a property appears on Adestate one of our agents has stood in it. Not the lobby and not a show unit — the actual apartment or villa being sold, photographed on the day, with the photographs we publish taken on that visit. It is the slowest part of listing something and it is the part we refuse to skip.
The papers we ask for
We ask for the title deed, the passport or Emirates ID of the registered owner, a recent service charge statement, and a power of attorney where someone else is acting. If there is a mortgage we ask for the bank's liability letter, because the outstanding figure decides whether the sale can complete at the price being advertised.
None of this is unusual and all of it is checked against the register rather than taken on trust. An owner who has the papers has them to hand.
The three findings that end it
We will not list a property where the name on the deed cannot be reconciled with the person instructing us, where the advertised area materially disagrees with the registered one, or where service charge arrears are large enough that the buyer would inherit a dispute.
Each of those is fixable, and we will say so and come back when it is fixed. What we will not do is publish it and let the buyer find out at the trustee office.