An office, a set of keys and a habit of writing things down
Most of what goes wrong in property here goes wrong because something everyone assumed was never said out loud.
Why we describe a flat the way we do
We started in 2018 with a shelf of keys and a notebook, letting flats in Maafannu and Galolhu for landlords who were tired of taking calls at ten at night. Eight years later the notebook is a database and the principle has not moved: a property is worth exactly what somebody knows about it.
Ask anybody who has rented in Malé what went wrong last time and you will hear the same four answers. The rent turned out not to include the water. The building had six floors and no lift, which nobody mentioned until the viewing. The advance asked for was three months rather than the two that had been discussed. And the deposit came back late, or came back short, because nothing had been written down at the start about what wear meant.
None of those are dishonest, mostly. They are the gaps that open when a letting is agreed in a conversation and never put on paper. So our listings carry the floor, the ward, whether there is a lift, how the water and electricity are metered, what the deposit and advance are, and what furniture stays. The tenant signs an inventory with photographs and both sides sign the meter readings on the day the keys move.
On the sales and land side the same habit turns into a slower process, and it should. We are not lawyers and we say so early and often. What we do is set out what is being offered, what the documents actually show, and which questions a lawyer needs to answer before any money moves. We have walked away from instructions where the answer to those questions kept changing, and we would do it again.
There are four of us. Two on lettings, one on sales and land, one on management and accounts, and all four of us do viewings.
The four of us
Ibrahim Rasheed
Opened the office in 2018 after nine years managing buildings for other people. Prices every letting instruction himself and will tell a lan...
Aishath Zunana
Takes most of the viewings in Malé and Hulhumalé. She counts the stairs, runs the taps and looks at the bathroom ceiling before she says a w...
Mohamed Imad
Handles sales and everything to do with island plots. He is the reason a transfer here takes four months and completes rather than taking fo...
Fathimath Laisha
Collects the rent, sends the monthly statements and holds the repair float. Ask her about the tank cleaning schedule, which she genuinely wi...
The slower half of the business
Can a foreigner buy a flat or land here?
Ownership of land by people who are not nationals is restricted, and in practice most foreign residents rent rather than buy. Where a company is the buyer the position depends on how that company is held, and it is not something to work out from a web page.
We will tell you plainly what we understand to apply to your situation, put it in writing, and send you to a lawyer before any money moves. We are not lawyers, nothing here is legal advice, and we will not guess at a rule in order to keep a transaction moving.
What is actually being sold when somebody offers land on an island?
It varies, and finding out exactly what is on offer is the first fortnight of the job. Sometimes it is a plot somebody holds and can transfer. Sometimes it is a long lease. Very often it is a share of a family holding where several people have to agree and not all of them are on the island.
Add to that a measured size that disagrees with the paperwork, a boundary wall in the wrong place, a building nobody ever recorded, and an access track that is a habit rather than a road. All four are ordinary. The island council is involved in most routes and the practice differs from island to island, so we establish what applies to that plot at that time rather than quoting a procedure.
What should I check before buying a flat?
Who appears on the documents and whether everyone who needs to agree has agreed. Whether anything is owed against the property. What the building's arrangements are for the roof, the tanks, the lift and the common stairs, and what the service contribution has actually been for two years rather than what it is meant to be.
Then the physical things, which cost real money: the state of the tanks and the pipework, any sign of water coming through a ceiling, and the age of the lift. We set all of this out in writing and then a lawyer takes it. We will never tell you a purchase is safe.
Come up to the office and look at the list
Orchid Magu, second floor. We keep more on the shelf than we put online, because some landlords would rather we showed it to three people than to three hundred.