Under Law No. 26 of 2007, responsibility for maintenance and for repairing defects that affect your use of the property sits with the landlord, unless the parties agree otherwise. A tenancy contract can move that obligation, which is why the answer for your flat is in your lease as much as in the law.
What does the law actually say?
Article 16: unless otherwise agreed, the landlord is responsible during the lease for maintenance works and for repairing any defect or damage that may affect the tenant's intended use of the property. Read it slowly, because two parts matter. The obligation is the landlord's by default, and the test is whether the fault affects the use you were promised. In a Dubai summer, an air conditioner that has stopped cooling is not a cosmetic problem.
The tenant's side is set out next. Article 19: the tenant must pay the rent on its due dates and maintain the property as an ordinary person would maintain their own property. And at the end of the term, Article 21: when the lease ends, the tenant hands the property back in the condition it was received, except for ordinary wear and tear or damage caused by reasons beyond the tenant's control.
So the split is cleaner than most disputes suggest. Keeping the unit in reasonable order, cleaning included, is ordinary care by the tenant. A compressor that fails, a leak in the pipework, a system that cannot cool the flat: by default, the landlord's.
Is there really an AED 500 rule?
Not in the law. You will see it repeated across forums and agent blogs, usually as a threshold below which the tenant pays. Article 16 names no amount. Where a figure like that applies, it comes from a clause in a specific tenancy contract, not from the legislation, and a clause in your neighbour's lease says nothing about yours.
That matters in both directions. A lease can legitimately hand small repairs to you, because the article opens with the words "unless otherwise agreed". What it cannot do is exist in someone's memory. If the threshold is not written down, it is not your obligation.
What if the lease says the tenant maintains the AC?
Then that is the deal you signed, and it is common enough in villa leases. Two things are still worth doing. Read whether the clause covers maintenance only, or repairs as well. Cleaning a coil twice a year and replacing a compressor are different orders of money, and a clause that only names servicing does not obviously carry the second.
It also cuts the other way. Guides for Dubai tenants point out that check the lease before paying, because some leases keep AC servicing with the landlord and the tenant signs a maintenance contract anyway. Check before you buy one.
The AC has failed. What now?
- Find the maintenance clause in your tenancy contract and read it before you call anyone.
- Report the fault to the landlord or agent in writing, with the date and what has stopped working.
- Ask for a fix by a stated date. In summer, a reasonable date is short.
- Keep every message, invoice and quote. If you end up paying for something the contract puts on the landlord, the paper trail is the claim.
- Do not authorise a large repair on the assumption it will be reimbursed. Get the agreement in writing first.
If the bill lands on you
Then it becomes a pricing question rather than a legal one. A single service visit and a full annual contract sit at very different levels, and knowing which one the fault needs stops an easy upsell. Start with AC repair costs in Dubai, and if the unit keeps losing cooling, read what a gas refill should and should not cost before agreeing to a third top-up.
This is a plain-English summary of published law, not legal advice. For a dispute about your own tenancy contract, take advice on the specific wording.