Tenants demand flexibility in payment to ease burdens and facilitate procedures

Real estate companies in Sharjah refuse to pay rents with cards and adhere to "cash and checks"

• Companies refrain from accepting cards so as not to pay commissions for using them.

  Photography: Ashok Verma

• Sufian Al Salamat: “Diversifying payment methods will take time to spread and be accepted on a wider scale among companies.”

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Tenants complained about the refusal of real estate companies in Sharjah to accept rental payments via credit cards, and oblige tenants to pay the first payments in cash and the rest of the payments through checks.

They pointed out, to Emirates Today, that not accepting rental payments with credit cards causes an increase in financial burdens, with some banks providing facilities to install the amounts owed on cards, which makes it easier for consumers to manage their financial obligations, demanding the need to diversify payment methods. Rental payments to include cards and direct debit.

In turn, specialists in real estate companies reported that some companies refrain from accepting cards, for not paying commissions for using cards, while they considered it an additional competitive advantage for companies, pointing out that diversifying payment methods will take time for its concepts to spread among companies.

In detail, the tenant, Muhammad Abdulaziz, said, “The real estate company that manages the building in which he lives, demanded that he pay the first payment, which includes three months of rent, in cash, claiming that it is the company’s policy, while it refused to accept payment by credit card, in light of the synchronization of fees payments.” school and other financial obligations, with the timing of the first rental payment and the lack of acceptance of postponement or waiting for paper checks to be made available.

The tenant, Karim Saif, explained that “some companies are intransigent in refusing to accept credit cards when paying rental payments, which makes it difficult for tenants to manage their financial obligations, especially in light of banks providing easy installment methods for amounts paid through cards,” pointing out that “it is important to There will be flexibility and diversification of payment methods to include cards or direct debits, and not rely solely on checks.

The tenant, Ibrahim Youssef, indicated that “diversifying the methods of paying rental payments is an important matter for tenants, which facilitates procedures and reduces financial burdens, especially in light of the presence of many financial obligations that require payment by checks at the same time, which may require issuing Multiple books of checks,” indicating that “payment by credit cards allows greater flexibility for tenants and is in line with the state’s systems in reducing paper and cash transactions, and provides opportunities to take advantage of the advantages offered by banks to use cards.”

The tenant, Muhammad Abdul Rahim, added that “the flexibility of making rental payments available with cards or direct debit from bank accounts facilitates many things for tenants, most notably the lack of the need to carry large amounts of cash when paying the first payment or other fees, in addition to the lack of the need to extract Multiple books for paper checks, and it also allows tenants to easily organize financial obligations, and not to forget the payment date, especially with the multiplicity of checks granted to agencies such as schools and others.

In turn, the executive director of the Somme Real Estate Company, Sufian Al-Salamat, said, "Some real estate companies' refusal to pay rental payments using the credit card system is due to evasion of paying the commission for using card payment devices, which ranges between about 1.5 and 2 percent and is paid to companies." And the banks that operate it, in addition to the belief that it is difficult to control and follow up on the tenants when the timing of payment of each payment of rents, unlike the rental checks that the company obtains in one payment and collects on time, with the imposition of financial fines for failure to pay, when any check is returned.

He pointed out that "diversifying payment methods for rental payments will take time to spread and be accepted on a larger scale among companies during the coming period."

And the real estate broker, Ahmed Bakr, explained that “not accepting card payments and sticking to paper checks is a traditional system that makes some companies interested in preserving it, especially while avoiding paying any commissions for using these cards,” considering that “accepting cards avoids companies chances of faltering in collecting payments.” Lease payments compared to checks, and it also provides an additional competitive advantage for companies that offer a variety of payment systems.

And the real estate broker, Magdi Abdulaziz, added that “acceptance of cards in paying rental payments is followed in a number of countries in the world, and real estate companies can try it in the first payments of rental fees that they require in cash, while these systems can be tried gradually, as it will need more time to spread.” extensively in the market.

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