What is off-plan property? A plain-words guide

A ready home exists: you can walk through it, and you pay the price on transfer. An off-plan home does not exist yet. You buy it from the developer on the strength of the plans, the show unit and the price list, pay in instalments tied to construction, and take the keys at handover.

"Off-plan" is the buyer's word for it. A developer's brochure says "launch", the register says "project" and gives it a number; all three mean the same building before it is built.

What you can see: plans, renders and a show unit, against the actual home. Layouts, finishes and views are promises until handover; the sales agreement says what the developer has committed to.

How you pay: a plan with up to four parts (a down payment, instalments during construction, a share on handover and, on some plans, a share after it), against the price on transfer.

When you move in: at handover, on the developer's date, against now. The date is a schedule, and schedules move; the project pages here show each date with its source.

What can change: the handover date and, within the sales agreement's terms, details of the build. What you pay is set out in the agreement you sign.

Every off-plan project in Abu Dhabi and Dubai is registered with the emirate's property authority: the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre (ADREC) in Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Land Department (DLD) in Dubai. Both registers are public. Each gives the project a number, names the developer of record, holds the escrow account and records construction progress; and both publish the sales themselves, price, size and date. That is what makes an off-plan price checkable rather than a brochure claim.

Of the 172 projects we list, 74 carry the register's project number on the page, where it can be checked against the register directly. The register guides explain each field and how to look a project up on dari.ae for Abu Dhabi and dubailand.gov.ae for Dubai.

The escrow account is the account the project's buyer payments go into, held under the register's supervision and drawn on by the developer as construction progresses rather than freely. Ask for its number, check it on the register, and pay into that account only, never into a personal or brokerage account.

A plan has up to four parts: a down payment on signing, instalments during construction, a share on handover and, on some plans, a share after handover. The project page draws each plan as a bar and lists the milestones where the developer publishes them; 10 of the projects we list carry a share after the keys, and the post-handover guide lists them.

A plan changes when you pay, not what you pay. A project that defers more of the price may be priced for it, which is why each project page compares the asking price per sqft with what buyers paid in the area.

The handover date is the developer's plan. The register holds two figures of its own: a construction percentage, and on some projects a registered completion date, which is not the marketing date. A project can stand past its registered date and still be under construction, and the register shows that as it is.

Every project page here shows the handover date with its source and, where we hold it, the register's construction figure. The developer pages count, from the register, how many of each developer's projects stand past their registered completion date.

The price against what buyers paid. 50 of the projects we list are compared with the median price per sqft buyers paid in the same area over the last six months, from the registers' own sales, and the price-gap report gives the median gap per emirate each month. An asking figure we had to estimate is never compared.

The score puts that gap beside the developer's record, the payment plan, the location, construction progress and the register's paperwork, with the working shown, and the rankings order what is on sale by it. Nothing here is advice; it is the figures, with their sources, so that a decision can be checked.