You know that little blue tick you see on property listings? The one that’s supposed to mean this is real, this is checked, you can trust it?
Turns out it doesn’t always mean that.
Prominent Dubai realtor Salman Bin Ali has been calling out a problem that’s bigger than fake listings. It’s listings that look verified… but aren’t actually verified against the right property at all.
Let me explain what I mean, because this matters a lot more than it sounds.
The badge isn’t the proof
Here’s the thing about verification badges. They’re supposed to tell you the permit behind a listing is real and matches the property being advertised. Simple enough, right? A permit exists, the badge appears, everyone’s protected.
Except Bin Ali reviewed cases where apartment listings allegedly referenced permit information linked to land or plot records with substantially different classifications and sizes. Read that again. An apartment listing… carrying a permit for a plot of land. Different property entirely. And still showing up “verified” to whoever’s scrolling through it at midnight, trying to decide where to put their savings.
His point is blunt, and honestly, it should be a permit showing “land, a plot, or a completely different size” has no business verifying an apartment listing.
Think about it this way. It’s like a restaurant showing you a health inspection certificate… for the restaurant next door. Technically, a real document. Just not proof of anything you actually care about.
Why does this hit different in off-plan
Now, if you’re buying a resale unit you can walk through in person, a mismatched permit is bad, but you’ve still got eyes on the actual four walls. You’ll catch the discrepancy pretty fast.
Off-plan doesn’t give you that luxury. You’re buying a floor plan, a masterplan render, and a promise. The permit and the paperwork behind the listing basically is the property, until the day it’s handed over. So when the verification badge is meant to be doing the heavy lifting of trust… and it’s not actually checking the right document… that’s not a small crack. That’s the floor giving way.
This is exactly why Bin Ali is pushing portals to strengthen their automated systems by cross-checking permit information against listing details before ads even go live, comparing things like property type, size, location, building name, project, unit details, permit validity, and transaction type. Not just “does a permit exist.” But “does this permit belong to this property?”
He also flagged something I found genuinely reassuring as a broker who does this properly: once permit information is pulled into a listing, agents shouldn’t be able to manually edit the critical details afterward. Because right now, apparently, that door’s open. And an open door gets walked through eventually.
It’s not just about the buyer
Here’s the part that gets me, and honestly, it should get you too if you’re working with a broker who does things by the book.
Misleading verified listings don’t just risk fooling buyers. They also disadvantage the brokers who are actually following the rules, since non-compliant listings can pull in enquiries and visibility they were never entitled to.
So while you’re comparing three near-identical listings, trying to figure out which broker to trust, one of them might be winning your attention purely because their “verified” badge is doing more marketing than checking. That’s not a level playing field. That’s noise dressed up as credibility.
Bin Ali’s also calling for real consequences here, not just a listing getting quietly pulled down. He’s proposed a system of escalating enforcement, including warnings, temporary suspension of listing privileges, broker-level sanctions, and referrals to the relevant authorities for repeat offenders. Good. Because a listing that disappears today and reappears tomorrow under a different name isn’t a solved problem. It’s a five-minute inconvenience for whoever’s misusing it.
To be fair, Dubai hasn’t been sitting still on this. Back in 2024, the Dubai Land Department and RERA introduced stricter rules requiring brokers to hold advertising permits before listing properties online, and limiting how many agents could market the same property, which cut down on duplicate listings significantly. That was a real step. This is the next one.
So what do you actually do with this
Look, I’m not telling you to distrust every badge you see. Most of them are exactly what they claim to be. But here’s what I’d genuinely tell a friend sitting across from me with a shortlist of units:
- Ask your broker to walk you through the permit, not just show you the badge. Does the size match? The unit number? The building name? A five-minute conversation saves you a five-figure mistake.
- Cross-check the permit against DLD’s own records yourself. It takes minutes, and it’s the one step that turns “trust me” into “see for yourself.”
- Be a little more skeptical of listings that feel too clean, too fast, too perfect. Real off-plan deals have texture. Paperwork. Questions that need answering.
The truth is, trust in this market gets built one accurate listing at a time, and it gets damaged the same way. I’d rather show you a permit that matches exactly, walk you through every line of it, and have that conversation take an extra ten minutes… than have you find out something didn’t add up after you’ve already wired a deposit.
That’s not extra effort on my end. That’s just the job, done properly.