November 21, 2008	Friday	Ziqa'ad 22, 1429

DUBAI: Expatriates who share homes in the booming emirate of Dubai to split soaring rental costs face eviction amid a crackdown by the municipality which deems the practice of house-sharing a health hazard.

To enforce its decision, the municipality of Dubai, one of the seven components of the United Arab Emirates, has begun to hand out fines and to cut water and power supplies to villas.

“More severe measures will be taken,” Omar Abdel Rahman, housing chief inspector at the Dubai Municipality, told AFP.

“Those violating the law have been given a deadline and we have started cutting water and electricity supplies and slapping fines” on those sharing houses, he said.

The official denied any link with analysts' predictions of a tailing off in demand for property in Dubai because of a scarcity of loans as a consequence of the global credit crunch.

“That is nothing to do with it,” he said.

Tenants will face fines of up to 50,000 dirhams (13,600 dollars) and owners of shared villas can be charged twice as much if they ignore the municipality's view that house-sharing is a “security and health hazard,” he added.

Local newspapers believe the ban could extend to flat-sharing as well.

So far it is not known how many people face eviction as part of the crackdown which was launched earlier this year, but it is clear that expatriates are nervous.

“Rents are unreasonably high,” said Sahar Allam, a German-Syrian citizen who shares a villa with eight other women in the upscale Jumeirah district, in order to cope with the cost of living.

Allam said she spends 2,175 dollars – more than half of her monthly wages – to rent a room and bath in the luxurious village.

“I will be forced to leave Dubai if I cannot share,” she said.

“All my house-mates are European and Arab women and some of them are also seriously thinking about leaving Dubai,” she added.

Over the past few years the once-dormant harbour of Dubai has been transformed into a vibrant city buzzing with construction and tourism projects that have attracted a massive influx of foreign expertise.

Foreigners represent more than 80 per cent of the population of Dubai, which is put at 1.5 million despite a spiralling cost of living and steep rents.

In Dubai, the average annual rent for a one bedroom apartment is around 27,000 dollars.

Rent hikes were capped to a maximum of 15 per cent in November 2005 and again last year by Dubai in an attempt to put a lid on soaring prices seen as threatening its competitiveness in attracting foreign businesses.

Iqbal Nair of India, his wife and their two children are all crammed in one room in an old house which they share with other tenants in the popular neighbourhood of Satwa. They pay 500 dollars monthly for their modest lodgings.

“If the municipality imposes its decision I will not think twice: I will have to send back to India my wife and my two children,” he said.

In fact, Nair will have to move out sooner or later because the Satwa neighbourhood is due to be razed to give way to a mega development project worth nearly 100 billion dollars.

Critics of the crackdown say the authorities want to transform the emirate into a city-state for the rich only.

But Abdel Rahman is adamant that the municipality has taken a sound decision aimed “above all at protecting the safety of the people”.

“Imagine a 10-room house, where each room is occupied by five people all using the same sanitary equipment, the same kitchen, and who sometimes set up their own kitchens (in their rooms) in violation of security norms,” he said.

“Imagine the pressure this places on the water and power network and even the parking areas.”

British real estate agent Jonathan Darcos said the crackdown has somewhat stimulated demand for apartment rentals in Dubai.

The global credit crunch may not cause rents to fall in Dubai but they may not rise any further, he said.

Rental demand is likely to remain strong but the high level already reached by rents means they will struggle to rise further.—AFP