Common area is the part of the building you don’t own, don’t control, but absolutely pay for through service charge. The quality of the common area predicts how quickly a Dubai tower ages.
Common areas are the shared spaces inside a building: lobby, corridors, lift cars, staircases, pool deck, gym, children’s room, mail room, parking bays (except designated deeded bays), rooftop, any retail forecourt on the ground floor. Maintenance of these spaces sits with the owners association and is funded by every unit owner pro-rata through the service charge.
The signal most buyers miss is the condition of the common areas on a 5-8-year-old Dubai building. If the lobby marble is chipped and the lift buttons are scratched and the pool grout is going grey, the owners association has underfunded the reserve and a special levy is coming. If everything is gleaming on a 10-year tower, the building is being run properly and the service charge is probably justified.
A client last year toured a Business Bay 2015 tower where the common areas had been refreshed in 2023. Service charge was at AED 17/sqft, which initially seemed high until we compared it to a tattier neighbour at AED 15/sqft with an obvious AED 35k per unit capital call likely in the next year.
Read the building through the common area. It tells the truth.
Related: Service Charge, Amenities, Sellable Area, Maintenance Fee.
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