The end-of-tenancy repaint an agent expects at handover: walls only, back to the building white, two coats, nail holes gone, photographed room by room and invoiced with the unit number on it. From AED 600 for a studio, done in one day up to a 2 BHK.
Dubai's tenancy law puts it in one sentence: the tenant must return the property in the same condition in which it was received, except for ordinary wear and tear or damage due to reasons beyond the tenant's control. The landlord may hold a security deposit to ensure that condition and undertakes to refund it, or what remains of it, at the end of the lease. Unless the contract says otherwise, the landlord is responsible for the property's maintenance during the lease, and the Land Department's own guide adds that the landlord answers for any defect, damage, deficiency and wear and tear not attributable to the tenant's fault.
Two things follow. Fading over three years and a few scuffs at sofa height are wear; a navy feature wall painted without the landlord's written permission is not, because the tenant may not make changes to the property without that permission. And a clause in the contract that requires the tenant to repaint at the end of the lease is what the trade guides say overrides the default; whether such a clause holds up at the Rental Disputes Centre is a question for a lawyer, not for a painter, and this page does not answer it.
If it does reach a dispute, the Rental Disputes Centre requires a copy of the registered lease, the Ejari (إيجاري, "my rent", the Land Department's tenancy registration). Without a registered Ejari the Centre will not open a case, so keep the certificate to hand.
The handover checklists agents work from are consistent: the unit returned clean and empty; damage beyond ordinary wear repaired, which in practice means wall holes and broken fixtures; any unauthorised paint colour restored to the original; keys, access cards, remotes and parking tags returned; and the move-in report, photos and invoices produced. The same lists want the final DEWA, chiller and internet bills settled and the Ejari cancelled before the keys go back. Painting comes before the final clean, so that sanding dust does not land on a floor somebody has just paid to have polished.
This is what the argument sounds like. The agent runs a flat palm along the hall wall at eye level, finds the picture-hook holes filled but not sanded, and the deduction letter reads "walls not in handover condition". The counter is the dated move-in report showing that wall on day one, the photographs of it after the repaint, and an invoice that names the room. Without those three documents the deduction stands on the agent's word.
The trade standard for a move-out repaint is a neutral white or off-white in a matt finish, two coats, matched to the existing ceiling colour. Three details decide whether it passes.
The white has to be the white the agent will check against, and the agent checks against two things nobody repainted: the ceiling, and the strip of wall the wardrobe hid. Match to those, on the wall, before the order is placed, because a tin of bright white from a different brand reads blue against an aged ceiling and the inspection catches it in the first room.
Ceilings are usually out of a walls-only scope, and that is the usual mistake. Paint the walls bright and leave the aged ceiling and the ceiling turns yellow by comparison, at which point the agent asks why the ceilings were not done and the answer costs a second visit.
Holes and scuffs are filled, sanded flush and spot-primed before the coat, or the filler flashes as a dull patch inside the sheen and the agent's palm finds it. A dark feature wall does not cover in the standard two coats; budget the extra coat rather than hoping.
The agent's checklist runs room by room, and so does the quote. What turns up differs by unit. In a studio it is the one wall behind the TV bracket and the splash line beside the cooker. A 1 BHK adds the bedroom wall behind the headboard, marked by the frame, and the corridor at shoulder height where every bag went past. Most 2 BHK handovers add a child's room painted a colour the landlord never approved, which is the wall that needs the third coat. A 3 BHK adds the maid's room, where the steam from the iron has lifted the emulsion above the door, and it is scoped as its own line. Townhouses and villas add a staircase wall scuffed by every sofa that ever went up it and a double-height hall that needs a tower to reach the marks nobody could clean.
Every ceiling counts. A move-out quote lists the rooms it covers by name, the hall, each bedroom, the kitchen, the corridor, the maid's room and every bathroom ceiling, so that the agent's checklist and the invoice describe the same unit. Balcony walls and soffits are exterior scope and are not in a walls-only handover unless the agent asks for them. The walls-only prices are in the table further down this page; a full interior repaint, ceilings and a colour of your choice included, is a different product with its own table on the interior painting price guide.
Before the first coat, every wall is photographed from the same angles the move-in report used, with the date on the image. After the last coat, the same angles again. The invoice carries the unit number, the date, the rooms, the number of coats and the product, because an invoice from a licensed contractor is what the guides name as the evidentiary standard when a landlord charges a repaint against a deposit, and the same document protects a tenant who paid for the repaint themselves. The filing fee at the Rental Disputes Centre for a deposit dispute is quoted differently by different sources, so no figure is printed here; the Centre's own page is the reference.
A tower repaint needs a contractor work permit from building management, typically the trade licence, insurance, scope and dates, and a service-lift slot for materials. Some buildings restrict work on Fridays. The slot is the thing that breaks a move-out schedule: when the lift is booked for two hours and the job needs three, the drums, ladders and sheets go up in the booked slot, the crew works the day, and the empties come down in the next morning's slot. Turn up late for the slot and the removals van on another floor has it until the afternoon.
A move-out has a hard date, and the repaint is one day of it: a studio, a 1 BHK or a 2 BHK is filled, sanded and given both coats inside a single working day. If the keys go back on Thursday, the repaint runs Tuesday, the final clean runs Wednesday, and the lift slots for both are booked the week before. The sequence is paint, then clean, then inspection, and a repaint booked for the morning of the inspection is a deduction waiting to happen.
The cleanest time to paint a home is the window between key collection and the furniture delivery, when the unit is empty and the walls are bare. The building issues a move-in permit for the incoming tenant, usually with a refundable deposit and a lift card, and the painter's work permit rides on it. Colour changes need the landlord's written consent first, and a landlord who has just repainted the unit white may prefer the tenant's colours go on over that white rather than instead of it.
If you are still overseas when the keys are collected, ask for photographs at each stage, the sample match, the first coat and the finish, and for the unit to be aired for a night before the delivery; low-VOC odourless ranges are specified for occupied homes. A repaint done for the incoming tenant is the same walls-only job as the outgoing one, and the two are frequently the same booking: the landlord repaints between tenants, the incoming tenant pays only for the colour they wanted.
On a new unit the developer's handover comes with a snag list, and the paint items on it read the same way on every list: paint inconsistencies, damp patches, mismatched patches where the developer's crew touched up, and paint applied before the underlying work had dried. Market practice gives finishing defects a one-year defect-liability window from handover; the statutory backdrop for that window sits in the jointly-owned-property law and the Civil Code according to a law-firm note, not in a RERA rule anyone has published.
The order matters: document the defect, with dated photographs and the developer's acknowledgement, before anyone paints over it, because a defect painted over is a defect you can no longer prove. The snagging and handover inspection service produces that record; the painter's job is the touch-up after the developer's window has been used, or the full repaint from developer white to the colours you actually want, before the furniture arrives.
The between-tenants repaint is the same walls-only job with the other party paying, and it is priced by unit type in the same way. What changes is the clock and the paperwork. Every vacancy day is lost rent, so the sequence runs inspection, quote, access, repairs, photographs, listing, and the photographs are the listing photographs. The white is matched to the building's standard and written on the job sheet by product and code so that the next repaint, and the next unit, match it.
An invoice charged against an outgoing tenant's deposit has to survive a challenge, and the guides name a licensed contractor's invoice as the standard; the dated before-and-after photographs are attached to it. Property managers operating under a Land Department-registered management contract typically hold several units in one building and book them under one permit and one lift slot, which is how a repaint programme across a floor is priced. A standing allowance for touch-ups between full repaints belongs on the annual maintenance contract rather than on this page.
What this table covers is the walls-only end of tenancy repaint the agent expects. Two coats of a Jotun or Dulux white or off-white matched to the existing walls, over walls in average condition, nail holes and scuffs filled and sanded, switches, frames and floors masked, the unit empty or the remaining furniture grouped and sheeted, and done in one day up to a 2 BHK. It does not include ceilings, a colour change, feature walls, wardrobe interiors, doors, balcony surfaces or a dark wall going back to white; each of those is added at booking and priced on the quote. The full interior repaint, walls and ceilings in the colour you choose, is a different product with a different table on the interior painting page, and the two tables do not describe the same job.
Transparent pricing with no hidden fees. Final price confirmed after assessment.
From AED 600
Two coats, back to white, one day
Quoted by unit
Two coats, back to white, one day
Quoted by unit
Two coats, back to white, one day
Quoted after a visit
Staircases and double-height halls priced in
Quoted
Holes, scuffs and single walls before an inspection
Explore more services from PROTECH Dynamics
PROTECH Dynamics serves all communities across Dubai
Emergency response available to any location across Dubai.
Our emergency team responds 24/7 across all of Dubai.
Send the unit, the handover date and the lift-slot window; the quote confirms the studio price, the 1 BHK and 2 BHK figures for your unit, and the photo record and invoice that go to the agent.
Available 24/7 for emergencies | info@protechfitout.com
