Dubai Court rejects man’s bid to reclaim villa gifted to wife and daughters

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Civil Court rejected a lawsuit filed by a man seeking to annul a gift contract for a villa he granted in 2006 to his second wife and their two daughters in Dubai, or to terminate the contract and recover the property or its value.

The court stated that the gift contract had been registered with the Dubai Land Department, proving the transfer of ownership, and therefore it cannot be revoked.

The case dates back to a lawsuit filed by the man in January 2026. He said that in 2006 he gifted a villa in Dubai, built on residential land, to his second wife and their two daughters. He claimed that he had stipulated that his wife should not dispose of the property. However, the couple divorced in 2021, and she later sold the villa in 2025 without his knowledge. This prompted him to demand the annulment or termination of the gift and the return of the property to him, or that the defendants be required to pay its value.

The defendants argued that the case should not be heard because more than fifteen years had passed since the gift contract was signed. They maintained that the contract was concluded and registered in 2006, and that ownership had been legally transferred to them.

They also confirmed the legality of the property's sale to a third party through a unified sale contract issued by the Dubai Land Department in April 2025. They submitted documents, including the sale contract and correspondence between the parties, indicating that the plaintiff was aware that the property had been gifted to his daughters.

The court explained that a gift, under the UAE Civil Transactions Law, is the transfer of property ownership to another person without consideration. It added that registering a gift contract in the real estate records results in the transfer of ownership. The law also considers gifts between spouses among the cases in which revocation is not permitted.

The court noted that documents showed the plaintiff voluntarily concluded the gift contract and registered it with the Dubai Land Department in 2006, resulting in the transfer of ownership to the defendants for many years until they sold the property in 2025.

It also found that the acknowledgement attributed to the first defendant not to dispose of the property did not specify a time period for such a restriction. Additionally, the statement was issued by only one of the donees and not the other two, making it unreliable.

The court therefore rejected the lawsuit for lacking a valid legal basis and ordered the plaintiff to pay court fees, expenses, and Dhs1,000 in legal costs.