Tips to relocate to Dubai

[MamzelleL]

Hello,
I’ve always found good advice here as there’s the Mumsnet community is so large I’m hoping to find people in this forum who have relocated to Dubai or used to live in Dubai until recently for some advice. I’m not interested in hearing from people who have never been or lived there or people who have only visited on holiday - I know there’s a lot of negative views and strong opinions on Dubai on this platform and Im not terribly interested in those since we’ve already made our decision.
I would be so grateful to get some guidance on:

• cost of shipping. We’re planning to bring as little as possible but we have some furniture that we love/that’s inherited that we can’t leave behind. If you shipped some furniture/big items what was the cost? This is just so that we can get an idea. I will of course set about getting quotes from shipping companies.
• where to live. Meadows and Springs look lovely but a little out of our price range. Arabian Ranches seems less practical as further away from the action. We don’t yet have school places and will need to take travel into consideration but I would like some advice on where is best to live with a monthly budget of 250-300k AED per year (regardless of where the schools may be) just so that we can start somewhere.
• schools. There seems to be several good options. I want to draw a shortlist of schools to go and see over the three days that we will be there at the end of the month. Which 3-4 primary and secondary schools that follow either the British curriculum or offer the IB would you recommend that we see? Brighton College caught our eye because we were aware of it and know the College in Brighton but it seems very small with no track record. GEMS seems to have a long waiting list. Dubai College looks very academic.
• car rental. Does everyone lease a vehicle in Dubai? It seems cheaper than buying.
• summer in Dubai. Do Europeans tend to leave Dubai in the summer months? Do UAE company have a similar approach to working remotely and allow Europeans to do this in the summer months?
• dogs in Dubai. There seems to be small park areas where dogs can be let off the lead but nothing too expansive. Is it really impractical to have a dog in Dubai? Can a dog be taken out to a restaurant? Does it need to be on the lead at all times outdoors?

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This thread is a few months old now. If you've found this page in search of information about moving to Dubai, you might find our guide on moving to Dubai with kids useful. Hope this helps! MNHQ

@TroubleOverBridgedWater I couldn’t agree more. The OP has come across as entitled and racist. As an Indian, I’m very disgusted with their comments.

I lived in Dubai for eleven years, leaving in 2019. I have to admit that when I think of entitled, elitist, materialistic, racist, etc, I think of Dubai expats - of all nationalities, along with the Emiratis. And I loved Dubai ;) Just realistic.

To the OP, I used to advise incoming expats to always keep their housing expenditures as low as possible for their first year because no one ever understands how expensive Dubai really is until they're actually on the ground. I would find an apartment for the first year. Look at the Greens. I took a look at propertyfinder.ae and there are a selection of roomy 3-bedroom apartments for 250k and less. I lived in the Greens/Views for years and it's a lovely community, so central and convenient to everything. And it's dog-friendly, although it's up to individual landlords too. Another advantage of the Greens was that it was "chiller free," meaning the air conditioning was not a separate bill but paid for by the landlord out of his service charges. While my friends were paying hundreds, even thousands, per month just for air conditioning, I paid very reasonable monthly electricity bills year round. It did go up in the summer a bit but never outrageously. I think the highest DEWA bill I ever paid for a 2-bed flat was 500 AED? Plenty of families live in apartments.

Most expats don't disappear in the summer because we worked. Once you get used to the heat, the summers are quite manageable and I actually quite enjoyed them because the city was quieter and traffic better. Take advantage of the chilled swimming pools for evening swims after work. Plenty have dogs.

What do you do, OP? It would really help if you found a job too. Even if you only made 15-20k a month it would go a long way.

Another consideration is your husband's employer. Is it a western multinational? Or a prominent UAE firm? Or a more local or non-western firm? I would never work for a local or non western company. Only western multinationals or Emirates or Emaar, which are operated to the standards of large western corporation.

I guess that's something.. How long is his probation period? Will he be able to complete and (inshallah) pass it before you commit to the whole family moving out there?

This is the first time you've mentioned it being a good job opportunity.

It might help if you could post the rough salary you're currently working on. Normally housing (and other benefits) are 1/3 of basic salary (as that's the max allowed by law and employers split benefits from salary to reduce their end of service benefit obligations). Maybe your husband's company is different, but based on what you've said there's a housing allowance of about 15k, which would mean a basic of about 45k - total 60ish. It's a lot of money and absolutely enough to live comfortably but not with a 250k housing allowance. If you insist on a villa, and are happy with a three bed look at Mira/Mira Oasis/Town Square/Arabella 3 (but they're tiny) and JAS (may be full) / South View for schools. If the total salary is more like 80 then that's a different ball game.

I do want to defend OP a bit. I wouldn't put my kids in a school which was mainly children from another culture. I've done that once (with Emiratis) and it didn't work. It's never good for kids to stand out and I found it reduced their friendship group to only being the UK/US/AU kids (and who wants that!) and there was a real divide in the school that was making my kids racist (although that was the school's making). That said, her references to 'Indians' are comparing to UK-based Indians, who are surely mostly British, so doesn't seem to be the same logic.

Also be aware that bayut and property finder are full of false listings. The verified listings at the more expensive prices are the realistic ones.

I really didn’t mean to offend. We have very good friends who are British Indians and we know how difficult it was for their children in their all-white primary school despite being born in the U.K. it’s always difficult to stand out.

Six months. We won’t know if he’ll pass his probation for sure and we won’t go over unless he does.

I plan to find a job in PR but I don’t know how long it will take me to find a job (like with everything else I’ve spent quite some time looking at why there is and Arabic is often required for these jobs). So we have to start with a decent single salary.
My husband’s company is a UAE company, not a Western company.
I’ll look at the Greens. Last time I searched nothing there came up with the dog filter in. There seems to be more listings now.

@Lalalalalaaaa
The school’s divide didn’t make your children racist, nor did the school itself. If it really did, what action did you take against a school ‘making my kids racist’? As that is an incredibly strong allegation to make.

Same goes for @MamzelleL. You’ve used the classic ‘but I can’t be racist! I know someone who isn’t the same as me!’ crap.
I'm not going to bow out from this thread as this is the perfect opportunity for you to learn from this. You have caused offence whether you meant to or not.

I moved them to a different school without the divide (because they acknowledged the issue and worked to minimise it). There they quickly made friends across nationalities and stopped saying things like 'I don't like Arabic children'. It was the school as they did not do this when they were at their previous school and have not done it since they moved schools. All schools they have been to have had a large number of GCC nationals and other nationalities (well until their current school but that's normal for Dubai compared to the other parts of the GCC we've lived in).

They were early primary and this was not coming from home (as evidenced by me moving school). There's only so much I can do when the issue is their lived reality. When my DD was saying this, her best friend was Emirati - she didn't consider her 'Arabic' because for various reasons (significantly language ability) she wasn't on the other side of the divide.

What's your experience to say that it's not possible? Have you a lot of experience in teaching in the Middle East? My experience is not particularly unusual. Some schools play favourites with nationalities, and that feeds through to a tolerance of bad behaviour/bullying that means the kids who aren't that nationality start to have a dislike of the preferred nationality.

Another consideration is your husband's employer. Is it a western multinational? Or a prominent UAE firm? Or a more local or non-western firm? I would never work for a local or non western company. Only western multinationals or Emirates or Emaar, which are operated to the standards of large western corporation.

THIS is a really important consideration. Local companies operate a different culture from what you may be used to. Western companies in Dubai will mostly still adhere to multinational norms on HR - adapted for local laws etc. and are likely to be more generous on benefits. Emirati companies do not. I'm making a generalisation here of course, but the transfer from the UK to an Emirati company will be a much greater culture shock than transferring with or to a European/USA multinational. Not saying don't do it, but your DH must absolutely read all the small print of the contract. Do not assume that because something is done in a certain way in the UK then it will be the same in a UAE contract. Caveat Emptor.

I'm late to the party but keen to understand a bit more as freelancing can work in Dubai. Can you have freelance work with UK clients (based in the UK) from Dubai?
I guess you need to recreate a company in Dubai to do so? (I've got a limited company here as I do contracting)
Do you need a work visa to be freelance? (I'll be on my Husdband's visa to start with)
Thank you!