Abu Dhabi Residents Speak Out as Duplicate Image Problem Leaves Property Listings in Chaos

Dozens of residents across Abu Dhabi's most active rental corridors — from Al Reem Island to Khalifa City A — say they are losing hours, and in some cases thousands of dirhams, because of a persistent duplicate image problem plaguing online property listings. The same apartment photograph appears across multiple units, different buildings, sometimes even different emirate altogether. Community members who spoke to The Daily Abu Dhabi described the issue not as an occasional glitch but as a systemic frustration that has become routine in the capital's digital property market.

The timing matters. Abu Dhabi's residential property sector has been moving quickly in 2026, with transaction volumes in the first quarter surpassing year-earlier levels and a wave of new handovers concentrated in districts like Yas Island, Al Jubail, and the expanding Saadiyat Grove development. More buyers and renters are completing first viewings entirely online before committing to in-person visits. When the photographs attached to a listing are duplicated from a different unit — or lifted entirely from a different project — that digital-first approach breaks down.

What Residents Are Experiencing

One family relocating from Hamdan Street to a larger unit in Mohammed Bin Zayed City described arriving at a viewing on a Tuesday morning in late May only to find the kitchen layout bore no resemblance to the photographs on the listing platform. The images, they later established by scrolling other listings, had been copied from a show unit at a separate development in Masdar City. No agent had flagged the discrepancy before the appointment was booked. The family wasted a half-day and a 45-dirham taxi fare — minor costs individually, but ones that compound quickly across a search that stretched six weeks.

At the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre, known as ADREC, the authority that regulates property advertising in the emirate under the broader framework administered by the Department of Municipalities and Transport, guidelines require that listing images accurately represent the specific unit being advertised. Yet enforcement at the individual listing level is complicated by the sheer volume of postings cycling through platforms daily. Residents say they are unaware of any formal complaint channel that produces a fast response — a gap community members described repeatedly in conversations with this newspaper.

Professionals working on the Al Maryah Island corridor and in the Corniche Road office towers have their own version of the problem. Commercial tenants say office space listed on aggregator platforms sometimes carries photographs taken during a previous tenancy fit-out — showing furniture, lighting rigs and branded wall graphics that have long since been stripped out. One facilities manager at a firm based near the Abu Dhabi Global Market Square said his team spent the equivalent of two working days reviewing shortlisted spaces that turned out to look nothing like their photographs once physical inspections were arranged.

What Can Be Done

The Tawtheeq rental contract system, which has been in operation since 2011 and links registered tenancies to verified property records, offers a partial solution: its underlying unit data could, in principle, anchor authorised photographs to specific registered properties. Several residents and one property consultant contacted by this newspaper suggested that integrating verified image requirements into the Tawtheeq registration process — rather than relying on platform-level self-regulation — would reduce the incentive to recycle imagery. The idea is not new; versions of it have been discussed within real estate industry circles for at least two years without formal adoption.

For residents navigating the market right now, the most practical defence is to request the Tawtheeq unit number before booking any viewing and cross-reference it against the municipality's public registration tool. Agents registered with ADREC are required to provide that number on request. Any listing that cannot supply it within 24 hours is, by itself, a signal worth heeding. The problem will not be resolved by individual caution alone — but until regulatory enforcement catches up with digital listing volumes, it is the check residents say they wish they had run earlier.