[Music] good morning I'm Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday legal my guest for today is Veronika Chastukhina and she teach me how to pronounce her name today um good morning Veronica good morning Ahmed nice to see you thank you for coming thanks for inviting me so um I always ask my all my guests the same question in the beginning what's your morning drink what's your coffee maybe okay so uh not like all other lawyers on this Market I don't drink coffee every day uh I drink it like once in two three days and um it's soy coconut latte tall or Grande but but the way why do I drink it is not because of the energy which I need but just for the flavor and normally my morning drink is water just water just plain boiled water that's for health reasons uh yeah actually good for stomach healthy routine it's a healthy routine very good so Veronica Chast China is uh legal council General legal council for whitew Real Estate uh one of the biggest real estate State brokerage firms in the UAE with Offices here in Dubai and in Moscow Moscow London Miami very good Abu Dhabi amazing Ah that's the new office right that's is the new office very good how big is your firm in general like how big is your team let's say you are the general legal council here in Dubai uh and you're covering only the UAE or you're covering a wider range so generally in the beginning I came to work in Dubai office where we have 117 people wow so I'm the only lawyer for them and when we open the office in Abu Dhabi sure they need like some advises and they don't have lawyer there yet so I'm helping them from time to time reviewing the contract drafting stuff uh helping with the law and I also work on the contracts for partners from Russia so I'm working with the Moscow office but it's like only for service agreements something like that for the partners who are bringing us clients and we are paying them the percent from the deal very good um I would like that you explain to us your journey how did you start in the law and from law school how did you end up in Dubai so I want the whole journey in brief but I want okay so I'm originally from Siberia which is not Moscow and not s Pittsburg don't mix it up um as a as a kid I always wanted to be an interior designer my dad told me like that the main jobs the main professions that time was World economy or law so I was supposed to choose and as my sister already chose World economy and I really didn't like math I was like okay probably the law but I was not excited about this so when I studied to studed like my journey in the University which is also the university in Siberia I actually got extremely excited about like different subjects especially first year so my first year all of my grades were like top grades because I was very interested in this I visited all the lectures like some even some exams I didn't come so they gave me that automatic 100% because I was coming for the lectures and I was answering to the questions and stuff and was very interesting and as a professional swimmer I have like tendency to stay at the same place for as long as I need and uh study write down and I write down very fast so it was like really cool for me and I really loved it but at the second grade we had this one of the family LW subject and at the exam the I I don't know why but the teacher she was like she didn't want to give me a good Mark and I asked her why because I answered to all the questions you asked me and she said do you want to come for the next round like you didn't pass and I said no I don't want to come to the next round she's like okay I will give you C so C is also a good Mark and after after that I became a little bit uh not happy about the uni and but like I had my favorite subjects was criminology criminalistic and criminal law so we had like three subjects this is for the B for the bachelor degree yeah so in Russia you have all the subjects in four years it's not like UK or us bar or any other jurisdiction so in Russia you study everything yeah and I love that and I like I thought I will be someone in criminal law so uh every single year at summer you need to go and do the internship somewhere where you choose Police Court anything notary so I always chose the the same court it's a criminal court and I spend that like one month each year uh otherwise you cannot pass for the next year if you don't do this internship and you need to have like legal documents confirming that you were doing that so um I I thought like it was really cool but I started to join the hearings and all the hearings were about the people who were selling drugs keeping drugs using drugs and it was a bit scary because like we have a proper cage there and you sit at the back of the seat and there is a person from this side behind the cage and like looking very very terrible like terrifying criminal like yeah very criminal like and for instance there is like his family members there or his wife or I even had like the most scary moment in my life there so at one hearing there was a woman with a small kid maybe 3 months old so baby was constantly crying and during the break I went to the corridor and she came out and she's like oh I see you here all the time please tell to the judge that my husband is not guilty and I said I'm just on an internship so yes I'm here all the time but I'm on internship so I I I like I know the judge but just for studies I'm in I'm still in the University so she was like trying to convince me and I said listen I'm so sorry but I cannot help you and then she told me oh by the way I need to go to the bathroom can you please hold my child and at that point like all different stories like different ideas passed my mind and I was like what if she'll give me the kid and she will just run away and will leave me with this child you know so this this this like thought crossed my mind and I was so scared it was like crazy so okay what did you do I took the kid she went to the bathroom but I was standing next to the door of the bathroom and I was like what if she will go outside of the window because it's a ground floor and I was looking around where's this security you know and I was like oh my God oh my God and I'm holding this baby that that that's probably when your brain started to be a lawyer putting all the possibilities yeah and like and the kid was so cute and he actually smelled like milk like very cute baby but I was so scared and she it took her long she she came out after like 20 minutes or so but when she came out I was like oh my God okay I gave the kid back and after that I didn't talk to anyone whoever tried to talk to me like from these people who are visiting the court hearings and stuff so so yeah and uh at some point I realized that I will not be able to do this so psychologically it's not for me and I feel bad for their families and I know that this is a criminal and I feel bad for the judge and it's like this is not for me yeah so but I was yeah I was still doing it because I enjoyed it but as a job as my profession future profession I couldn't uh think that I will do that so when I finish the university I moved to I was like a junior lawyer at the it's Automotive company so they had by that time three car sales centers in the whole alai region so there were 11 car brands and they were the only dealers so they were the whole dealership was on them and I studied in a small team me and another like senior lawyer but luckily her mom was a judge in the court so whenever we had any questions we were calling her mom and it was interesting um I spent almost like every second week in the court being just 21 year old and going for the hearings first I was going with the senior lawyer and then she's like okay now it's your time like try do it uh I was very scared the first time I was like representing our company and uh I didn't know how like talking correctly I was scared I will forget something because I wrote everything down for myself and I was repeating it constantly like this and that and that but it was it was interesting because like it helped me to a little bit Rel release and relax and try to talk to people and we didn't lose even one case we lost only one case but we won in the appeal okay and we were only two ladies in that team after that uh I moved to Dubai but I moved because my sister was already living here and she asked me if I want to try but I've been here many times even when I was a kid because my father was doing a lot of business and he was coming to Dubai so I knew the place um and I couldn't find anything even though I already had an experience and I was almost 24 years old when I came here here so I sent my CV everywhere but I don't have any experience in like International experience I have only experience in Russia and every time somebody was contacting me they were like you were 24 and you already worked for three years what are you talking about because usually people graduate much later but in Russia it's like this you gradate by when you're 21 so uh it was very hard and one of um our family friends he helped me to get an internship at afrian Angel afredi and Angel is the first legal firm in U is the oldest one uh really really nice like a setup of a like a family setup so when you join them you feel like you are in a family member and uh I was told that because I don't have a usuk bar I can only be a paralal so I saided as a paralal no problem it was very interesting in the beginning because I didn't know anything and I was mostly concentrating on opening offshores and uh assistant the client uh who had the construction arbitration so like doing due diligence looking for the proofs and everything looking for something in the law so I was working with Associates and the partners but then there was one idea which crossed my mind that uh one of the partners he's from Iran and I said like at that time that was a little bit of an issue so I said why don't we try uh to do the second passports for the Iranian clients so I by myself found the company in St kits and NIS and it was the investment in Sugar industry so you pay $400,000 you get passport you get passport for your wife and three children so five passports and it was a good idea we did it and I was like I was expecting something which year was that 200 12 okay so that's that's quite early in the CIP by investment programs yeah I found it actually online just Google Google it okay that's the main thing uh and I was expecting like to move somewhere you know so maybe I'm working well I'm doing a lot of good things and when I joined we had like five pargal and by the time when I resigned we were only two for the whole firm so u i was head hunted uh by Hayes it's a recruitment agency yeah and uh the next company I moved in was in-house first of all secondly it was like extremely interesting field where I never worked before so it was a telecom investment in sub Sahara Africa and in our portfolio there were 11 different companies in different African Subs African countries so I was working only like the team was small it's my boss um his name is steuart Andrew Simpson he is the best boss on the planet Earth like I learned so much from him he has an extreme uh high level of intelligence his memories like photographic memory so when we were sitting at the meeting for 2 hours like shareholders meeting somewh in Uganda he remembered everything word to word so when there was a minutes of the meetings coming from the secretary company secretary he was like actually he also said this and that and this and that and I was like wow how can you remember all of that so yeah so this I think this was my crucial moment uh because first six months when I joined the company I was sitting in front of my laptop and I was eating in front of my laptop and I was like coming at 9:00 and I need to finish at 600 but I was finishing like at 800 so this was a massive amount of information which I got and like I was supposed to get to know everything every single structure how it works so learn everything myself I didn't know anything about sub Sahara about the laws and everything so I did everything by myself self learn self studies can you please maybe give us an example on what what kind of work what's the nature of work that you did in subsaharan Africa okay so first of all we were on top of of all the board all the board of directors in each and every company so in each and every subsidiary we had uh during the business there I mean we didn't check their contracts with uh suppliers or whomever they worked only few times when uh we were put in the cable in one of the sub Sahara African countries underground and suddenly uh we received uh the note that um it's not going like there is no connection so we started to investigate and basically the monkeys ate the cable in some of the forests so that's one of the cases um another time uh the government decided to put the road in one spot so they didn't check and decided to dig and they just broke all the cables which were underground so that uh next time uh our license were nationalized by one of the governments but they didn't pay us even though by law they were supposed to pay us the specific amount of money so we filed the court case and we won so it was like the court case against the government we won but because this country I think doesn't have so much money I'm not sure what's happening right now but by the time I left the company it was still ongoing so they first told us yes we're going to pay you it was a $400 million MH uh but I don't think they have this money I don't know if they have it by now but they didn't attempt and they transferred uh about 40 million to some strange bank account and they said Oh and it bounced back and they said we transferred like as a pre-art of what we can do in trenches and installments and we were like this is not our bank account and they oh something so it started to go yeah around so this kind of it's very interesting very interesting and very challenging I would say uh I was flying to sub Sahara African countries and had a meetings with the shareholders and sometimes it was dangerous and it was dangerous On the Border it was dangerous at the meetings I don't know if I can mention it is what it is uh like the shareholder had a gun and he put it on the table in front of me oh wow that's level of intimidation and he said I only want to speak to the CEO so we got up and we left but it was very intense because the I was the only woman in the whole team and uh yeah I think after that you canot be scared of anything yeah so it was really cool really nice really interesting uh but then I decided at some point to get married which was not a good idea uh and disclaimer disclaimer I confess so um I moved to Belgium because my ex-husband he he's French but he lives in Brussels all the business he's doing is like from them and when I moved moved to Belgium it was uh August 2019 I started to look for the job something in law and I was told that I cannot get any job because in Belgium same as in Netherland they don't accept any degree and they cannot do the conversion course so you need to study again for four years and that was not my idea of life so first I didn't know what to do and then um there was a very like small restaurant Brasserie uh in the building not far from where I lived and I was like okay this looks cool uh I talked to the owners this was a married couple and they said that we are trying to sell it because it's not their business she was a teacher at school and he was um some mechanical whatever so they didn't want to have it and they were only open during the lunch time that's it and it's next to the governmental organization so everybody comes for the lunch to that spot you can actually make very good money for that so I was like yeah how much do you want to sell it and they told me the price was like very cheap and I said okay I will take it so I bought the restaurant I bought a shelf company and uh I bought the restaurant so I connected them uh the main problem was not like here uh you people don't want to get an official contracts they want to receive it's called shage uh it's the payment when you're not working so you receive a specific amount from the government so what they say uh oh yeah I I would would like to work with you but uh can you not sign me officially and you will pay me like they will pay him so much and you pay me cash okay uh this is problem number one because one day I came to the restaurant and all the people who were supposed to be serving they didn't come and I had Chef Sue chef and at one day I served alone 70 people 70 people wow by myself like I mean the only thing I didn't do I didn't cook the rest um yeah so now even when I remember about this I was like wow how did I do it being a lawyer I think I don't know actually I think lawyers have some kind of superpowers they can do anything at any time they just have to decide plan for it and do it yeah because you know what I realized for instance um I was extremely fast which is what I'm doing right now I'm very fast with my work and like I was taking an order I was putting it in the machine so it goes down I straight away know which drinks to make I go to the bar I make all the drinks I take this I give it somebody comes to pay I take payments and I remembered everything even each number of the table because in the system you have the numbers but you don't have the numbers on the tables so I remembered all of that and I was like super fast and I think yeah it's the legal mindset was it a good uh Detachment with a good period I mean how long was that how many oh okay yeah so what happened uh as I I bought it in October 16th of October 2019 and then in February there was a first lockdown yes and then there was one more lockdown uh but what I really appreciate about the government of Belgium even though I didn't have uh yet they didn't give me the residency but I was already paying taxes for the employees and everything they were paying me really good shage really good payment for because they shut down my business so I could cover with this money the rent for the restaurant uh my had money to cover the rent for my apartment where I stayed because my ex-husband he lost uh the possibility to do any business because everything was shot so basically lived on my investment not very smart no I mean it it covered everything yeah uh and then when we reopened because we reopened twice after the first lockdown it was a massive re open uh I got the DJ and people were dancing on the tables we allowed them to dance on the table so so it was packed it was packed every single day everyone was super happy that they can finally sit outside drink eat whatever then there was second lockdown and after that it was summer so there was like football matches and stuff and you can rent a huge TV screens there so and you get all the connections for free all the connections to the all the all the TV channels C TV so it was massive and it gave a really good money like it was a good investment okay it was hard I was working from 8: in the morning until 2:00 at night 6 days a week non stop and I was wearing the same cloes black jeans and black T-shirt and black sneakers which is not me but uh at the end of the day it was good investment it brought me a good money even though I didn't know anything about this from the start but I learned I youtubed everything I Googled things learned how to do any drinks you want I can make for you one coffee I'll do it I can serve it um yeah and then uh when I sold it um I also like I I sold it much higher price than I bought it so it was good tough but interesting good experience and uh after that I moved back to Dubai and first uh I it was a bit tough because I came back during Ramadan and then it was summer so it was a little bit tough to I think we met at that point yeah we met at that point exactly right before I think before Ramadan started something like that yeah so it was a bit tough even though I know so many people here and I have a big experience but uh I don't know maybe it was just like I believe in in faith so I believe what's supposed to happen with you it will happen so I got a job uh in one company I will not say the name uh also through the head hunters and stuff but they didn't want to sign my contract they said they don't want to be exposed and it's not Russian people it's the people from another country they said they don't want to be exposed I said but you already exposed because your name is in the license of the company everybody knows that you have this company so so they were dragging here and there and they were like we were going to pay you cash I said listen I want to be official here I need Emirates ID I need bank account I need to bring my things from Belgium so uh yeah and I worked for them for like few months and but then no and uh I I found the job where I'm working right now uh via LinkedIn I was contacted there in July and then I started to work to them with them officially in December 8th of December so it's a real estate brokers real estate company uh it's created by only one smart very smart person who is very young I'm not going to say the age but it's I I believe like coming from a very small city in Russia he did a tremendous thing and he started with a super small office in Moscow and now he is huge so that's my story now I'm working there and I really enjoy it but it's mostly like Target of Russian clients and maybe you can tell us a little bit about what what kind of work you do there I mean all the real estate brokerage firms as uh designated non-financial uh business and professions um they they they kind of have their own I don't know compliance obligations and they have it is also a business that is regulated by the real estate regulatory agency and so I think are you taking care of these two aspects plus all the legal work that you have to do internally for 117 120 people in Dubai uh well basically when I joined them they didn't have any legal support they didn't have nhr so every single question related to anything related to the law it's Veronica Veronica we have a how to do this and that in HR how to do this and that uh for okay real estate is one thing uh check got bounc what should I do uh how to complain to the police any any question at all related to Everything Medical whatever because they didn't know anything they started fresh and they like they were trying to be compliant and even with AML so they hired that like still we have a company which is assisting Us in all the reports and everything but when the time came to some questions from the governmental organizations you remember that uh they came to me so I started to look at the law as well to check okay what do we need to do but we we have designated people who are doing the kycs um we keep everything uh we have one person who like did the training here so she had a certificate for that and and she's doing this work but every single time there is a question it comes to me related to anything anything and everything even for instance uh we had some issue in the office um you know the electronic system in the wall uh suddenly stopped working and they said there was a leakage and stuff so somebody signed the documents saying yeah okay but they didn't see they didn't check actually there was water on one of our employees and I said did you see there was water did you she's like oh I just signed I didn't even read it and it was an inspection and I said listen how you can so I was involved in this case as well so then so I guess all the ins and outs of the operation itself everything everything for related to internal staff and everything related to every single complaint of every single client how does that work I mean how 120 people be covered by 117 people uh I mean it's it's quite a big operation and having only one lawyer uh covering all the questions from management midlevel and then BR Brokers and clients is is quite a heavy work how do you get to manage this on your own okay um so basically as I told you already from my experience you saw that I switched from Automotive to corporate to Telecom investment to restaurant business and now I'm in a real estate I'm um I'm a genius of course so uh I I think first of all I have a very big experience secondly as I told you I worked with big people like I would say in a Frei Shaham Safi the partner whom I was in his team I was in his team he is like more business oriented person and he has a very sharp mind so you can pitch from this person and then in another company Stuart my previous boss like he taught me to be more in details and not just to like some when somebody asked me a question I don't say oh if the answer is there on the surface I will say this is the answer but if it's tricky I always say okay I need an agreement I need all the emails I need whatever documents confirming that they wait for this this this that that and until I look at all of this I don't give the answer well what I was asking about was not about the quality of your work or the how smart you are I understand this very well what I mean is the time the capacity do you have capacity to handle all these uh how many inquiries do you get per day for example uh it depends on the season okay so right now it's going to be a low season right now uh I have a lot of work before lunch and after lunch is like here and there and Brokers they tend to call you after your working hours because their working hours are different from mine they're not office employees they work as the as the client works because we're also now working with Miami and we have clients from Miami and they call in like overnight so they can text you but uh I made sure that uh I don't reply after my working hours otherwise I will not have time to you know rebalance my life but uh during in the high seasons and which starts from September and going I would say up till April I work from 9 until 600 I have a lunch break of 15 minutes 20 minutes 15 20 minutes and that's it and I work nonstop but I work fast and I cover everything I I try to do I try to work in a way that I don't have anything left for the next day or if I have something for the next day I already know what it is so I I briefly looked at it so I I marked and like okay this and this and this and that so in advance I know okay I need to look at this and that stuff here and all the contracts for instance the Spas right now or forms forms F I know them by heart yes so I know the main points I need to look at I don't need to look at all of this draft I know where depends on the question I know where to look so I straight away scroll there okay this okay maybe something on this part so let me ask you this I'm sorry to to cut you is it uncommon that resay Brokers have an in-house lawyer here in Dubai I'm talking uh I think uh it's I think usually there is a team there must be a big team for especially with big this the bigger you get like the more people you need but what I also know from my previous work it doesn't matter how many employees you have if they all don't do their work properly you are out of this business so you need few who are quick smart um has the knowledge they don't need to be with a degree from Oxford or something they can have like they might be not very experienced but you see in them like they driving how they work so they're picking things and uh I think if you have few smart like people like that you will be on top because every single client is calling me I helped one client they knew that it like it was me and they text me and saying you helped this person they gave me your number out of our company so I'm not only working there I also have some clients who calls the broker and said can we please talk to your lawyer I understand one of the things that I find it really remarkable in in in this business is that restate Brokers to be able to practice they get some training which is mandatory and I think they have to renew this training every few years on the r broker card exactly so based on the is they have the code of ethics they have the transactions itself they have a lot of things that they have to learn and understand and a lot of it is uh derived from the regulations which is the the law and also having um lawyers assisting them in their in their in their companies why do we see in the market so many Brokers giving a wrong legal advice to their clients because this is very common we have seen it I speak all the time with litigation lawyers and we understand that we say Brokers many times give wrong advice yeah this is actually also my question to the Brokers okay so uh I thought you closer to them you would know in my company there are like some brokers who are constantly working with me on different questions so that if they have any problem or they know or they think there can be some problem they come to me and they talk to me um but I was also facing like a lot of clients who didn't close the deals with our companies since like 2021 they Clos with some other Brokers and they actually don't even know what they bought or on which conditions and then now it's a big problem and they are telling me yes the broker told me this and this and this and that and I'm thinking how could the broker tell this and this and this and that if in their education like their studies you know when I joined the company I asked them to send me the slides with what what are they supposed to know it's 400 slides I went for all of the slides from R so I know everything they supposed to know so I'm like if they ask me something and I know that it was there I'm like first my first answer is but you must know it and then I smile and I answer to that question so but I think uh because the market was so fast especially during this Invasion and uh the problem between Ukraine and Russia and stuff the the people they started to fly here with money and they want to invest anywhere somewhere they want to save their life they want to save their investment they want to settle down so that time it was very easy you like the clients will come in uh to the office let's say real estate office or the agent called them but that time I didn't work in real estate I lived in Belgium so they come and they say please help me to buy something on this amount of money I don't know what land apartment building anything please so they didn't read the contracts nothing they just signed and all these problems are dragging from 202 21 what I'm facing right now a lot from 2021 so and I think because that it was like a hype and Brokers were just trying to make make money make money take like commission commission commission commission so they grew a lot and what I like about the company where I work we have a lot of brokers who are telling me I'm not going to take this we're not going to sell this project I said why they said this is a very bad investment and we don't want our client to come back and say this company sold me this I would not say the word yeah and what should I do right now I cannot sell it I cannot uh rent it out uh it's no go construction is not moving it's not a good developer we're actually not working with some of developers the ones who showed themselves as not liable we stopped working with them because in our company and the owner of our company uh he is very keen on the comfort of the client we're always trying to help the clients so we are not getting involved in such kind kind of deals but I know a lot of other dealss from another companies and I even visited recently the dld to discuss this as well who sold something which doesn't exist or it was built on completely another plot or it didn't even start or the money went not to the escrow account but to the corporate account of the the developer and it's still ongoing and they didn't they were not registered with a code they were not registered with dld they have nothing and they still paying the installments and they dare to tell them oh you missed this installment if you will not pay it right now you'll get a fine yes yes we've seen this repeated many times so from your perspective it's not only the Brokers it's the policy and the strategy of the company itself where def 100% because for instance for us we have people on top for uh because we do the sale and purchase Off plan uh secondary market and we also do the rent so we had the people on both ways like the top managers who work with them then each broker we have a team of Brokers so there's a top broker let's say six or seven people in his team uh and they all get uh training they every single every single week on Friday and Thursday uh we have meetings like I mean I'm not involved in that but I see this because it's happening in our office so it's a broker meetings with their team leader then they discuss the project they discuss the work for like two hours to qualify which projects are they going to sell and to qualify their work and you know they discuss and say okay for example you were amazing and for you you know you need to pay more attention to this and that so they do this every single week plus we have uh the chief operational officer a very nice woman and she also gathers them as well and she's giving them like examples trainings she's doing training so I actually also participate in the trainings because I do all the legal stuff the whole shebang for her slides or I do the slides everything related to the law even in for russle because we started to sell there as well so I also do like everything related to how can you sell there what are the regulations what are the regulations in in Abu Dhabi here everything so she can combine it and she can give them the proper training as well extras you know so they will know more and this is happening every single week so this is like we are concentrating on the quality of work I'm really impressed I'll tell you very honestly I did not have um I did not think that you put so much attention on to the quality of information that is given to the clients and my perspective of what I've seen in the market for so long is that maybe a big huge percentage of The resay Brokerage companies they do not care about anything else other than closing deals making commissions and that's it and hearing it from you right now this is a really nice uh eye opener yeah but this is all based on our owner of the owner of the company so this is his idea this is his strategy and this is the way the direction he wants to move I mean we're looking the doors are open we have Brokers uh new Brokers newcomers but we also have like the brokers who were there from the beginning and they are closing the massive deals like I told you my colleague Arena she's like she's the best broker and she's closing the massive deals yeah I would like to know more about like the relationship between the legal uh Council of the company and a broker like Arena what you mentioned her right now how does your relationship a professional relationship work I mean how often do you talk every time she has a deal for example or every time she has a problem for one of her clients the communication between both of you how does it work so basically uh our Brokers they don't work from the office they always somewhere doing like they showing the apartments and going for trainings whatever presentation stuff uh but every single day uh we have a shift for the broker ERS there's a specific amount of them to stay on the ground and receive the calls under the calls answer the calls if uh they receive like information from whatever clients they call them they explain what are new projects what do they they interest in to buy and stuff so they have shifts every single day and some of them even have shifts at night like I told you because I working with Miami so some of them are working at night but it's it's by them if they want to sure nobody forc them but they do just to make it clear working with Miami means selling the UAE yes okay great okay yeah clients in good to know clients in Miami buying in UAE yes which is very good but we also like selling there but there we have Brokers there for this but for UAE sale yes they are calling our Brokers so uh we have three offices in one floor so first I was in the office it's like back office where all the accountant admin a finance they were all there it's a very small office and I at some point I felt like it's too claustrophobic for me and actually the Brokers were a bit shy to talk to come and talk to me so there was a bit of a distance like they I was kind scared of me or something because every time I come to the meeting I solve everything and they like okay you know so I decided to move uh to the big office where we have brokers who are doing this calls and everything so they became more open and while I'm working there I have my headphones I don't know if I say the brand when I switch off the sound so I cannot hear them they are coming to me nonstop during the day with different questions just like can I talk to you okay sit down boom this that small questions big questions questions related to contracts everything so they became more open and they like more comfortable to communicate and it's actually better for their work and it's more interesting for me so I can see them I can see them on the ground what what is the from your experience what is the most common repeat repeated question that everybody come to you with a problem or with a question that the Brokers would need help with internally oh there are a lot of common questions okay uh first give us I don't know top three uh the problem with the developer okay the developer of plan yeah okay uh all the time questions related to additional terms and conditions to form F because we want to be precise that this will not go in the wrong way wrong direction and nowadays I have actually a lot of questions related to the rent and eviction eviction I think is the question number one and 10 times I repeat the same thing and I'm like why you still didn't remember that this works like this that the eviction notice is not working from the day you received it but from the end of your contract yeah and they're like why they stay why this person is refusing I said if the tenant knows the law he will not move out and he will be right but if he doesn't doesn't know the law maybe he will move out but we have an extremely good option which also our shareholder created the owner of the company when we really need some property really need and we do the upgrades buy like we buy a lot um on the Blue Waters and we do total upgrade he needs the person to move out from this property so what he do he generously suggest to pay specific amount of money to them so they can rent something else just kind of a fair and move out before the notice is lapsing you know Fair compensation to yeah and everybody is happy there an amicable deal that's aside from the because after you do the uh renovation after you do the whole Shan you change everything the price become much better much higher so you don't lose from proposing the tenant in a nice way this is the money please rent something and you actually make money on that right it helps you to make more money a very smart way and everybody's happy and then they actually contact us maybe help us to rent something else and this so it's a good connection with people so it's very pleasant no negativity this kind of stuff what one question I would like to understand from you I know you're not admin administratively involved in that because someone else in your team is is doing it but I'm pretty sure you have been involved in writing or making the decisions for it how you accept your clients how do you onboard them oh there's the whole kyc process uh yeah so basically uh the compliance is number one thing here any any business you do you must be compliant yeah so you definitely need to check the source of funds this is number one and I will tell you a lot of clients they're saying why should I provide a source of funds because in 2021 I didn't provide anything yeah or somebody asked me or somebody else filled this form for me so we are trying to be like very nice with them but we are telling them that if this form will not be filled in there will be no deal we cannot close it because you know there is a fine from the government and we just we need to stay clean and I think that UAE is trying to be as clean as possible and not not even like with the laws they implemented and everything is so easy like when I went through the AML and I saw like what do you need to do different examples forms whatever so actually it's you just need to sit down yeah check everything do it it's not a rocket science it's not like okay easy I will like reading a book but some books like I told you today are not very interesting so it's tough but you must read them but this one you just need to be involved learn once do the internal like thoroughly the whole investigation and all this thing and then it's becomes easy for you so you already know what why how and the explanation to the client will be also easier easier so uh yeah we are working on this we if somebody has a question they come to me again asking me like okay uh what can be done and if there will be a we need to provide some documents for the proof I was like okay this you can do this or that if he's working is an employee okay provide a certificate from your work or something you know this kind of documents plus you need to remember that if you work with the same client after one year you you have to do it again yes if you if you sell rent or whatever you need to do it again and again so that um and actually I wanted to mention like now became a very uh common question here uh we have a new law in Russia that the Russian tax resident cannot close the deal with another Russian tax resident in any other currency than Russian rubbles it's a very interesting update yes so basically when we are closing the deals here so for example I'm not a tax resident because I don't leave I live more than 183 days yeah outside of Russia so I'm Tex resident of UAE uh but we have clients who surely doesn't have bank accounts here uh and uh they just want to buy the property invest for the future for their children stuff and they're both tax residents in Russia ah in this case they have to do the transaction in Russian rubles yes so what's happening what um the only way out like when you draft the form F surely you will pay 4% dld here and you will pay trusty fee here you can be present or your POA can come but in the additional terms and conditions you need to write and this is what you do you do the exchange of the money in Russia on the Russian because you you cannot exchange it here I mean you will not bring millions of rubbles here first you cannot cross the border with this money yes you cannot take them out you are allowed to transfer the money from Russian Bank to International Bank but it's limited it's very limited it's like $4,000 dollar or something like that per day so how much it going to take you to take this money out and pay the exchange rate and stuff but how does that work with the trustee offices because they kind of need also proof for the transaction happening if there is a manager's Check Exchange or there is a bank transfer happening how do they make this is checking uh yes so definitely there will be no manager check it's impossible and also uh the seller and the purchaser they write down the statement that yes I paid and yes I received this money in Russia so like this because they cannot bring the money out understood so it's a little bit complicated right now uh but it's it's doable it's workable but if one of them is non- tax resident in Russia then not a problem so uh the main thing it should be uh you are not a tax resident in Russia and the bank account from which you are paying is not a Russian Bank like I can buy a property here with the tax resident Russian tax resident and I can I can pay here we can close the deal here yeah so it's not a problem yeah but this this became a bit tough and um it's getting tougher and tougher and now when you come to the country you need to declare that you're not tax resent anymore if you will not declare you will be fined and it's a criminal case right now of course we're going to go deeper with the questions and I will put you on the corner you must seen you you must have seen this a lot we heard in the market that there's a lot of re estate transactions happening in crypto okay so I would like to have your comment on that do have you seen this and how does these transactions happen uh I was not involved in any crypto transaction but I know that people have uh they work with cryptocurrency they this is the only option for them to transfer the money MH uh how does it happen you want to know uh there are some companies here who can issue a manager check on your behalf that's not really a a a black and white transaction this is a little bit of gr yes so uh it's called convan in companies yes so you they also have uh cryptocurrency wallet crypto wallet so we just call it in Russian we call it crypto I understand so the people transfer the money from their it's a clean money I'm saying because like it's not I mean this is the obligation of the conveyancing company yes so they transfer the money via crypto because they don't have bank accounts here or something like this or you know then the convincing company issuing a manager check but they take surely the percentage for their work yeah what I don't like uh is that some of the convenience in companies and I Saw the Light license don't have uh the activity to do this but they somehow doing this yeah yeah I understand I mean some of and for me it's very strange because like even in Europe when I was transferring my money so to Europe when I I moved there and to buy the company I specifically did it via the lawyer in Belgium so my money came from Dubai bank account to the lawyer there then from the lawyer to my new bank account in Belgium so the government can see that this is a clean escrow deal that is done the book but so that's what I suggest like I mean I think they need to use more legal firms rather than some convenien and companies and I think it can be your new line of business I totally agree with you we have been doing this for many years doing qualifying agreeing checking these deals and we do escrow from time to time or even it is very simple and easy to um to do but there's a lot of legal checking behind it to make sure that source of wealth source of funds the whole deal is real is not just a a financial transaction rather than a re estate deal but yeah we spoke a lot about the regulations internally in The Brokerage company where you work the relationships between you and the the the Brokers and what mistakes and what they learn and so on so forth but from the real estate Investments or from let's say from the end client perspective have you seen any uh strange ideas or wrong understanding to the law or to the regulations what what is the most common um mistake that investors or clients come up with and that affects your work okay so surely yes the answer is yes uh first of all nobody mostly reads the sbaa and they trust the broker so a lot of people have an idea that if they bought an apartment and they invested the money they can quickly resell it while it's still of plan even though the contract says you can resell it after 40% completion yeah 40% payment sorry not completion so 40 or 30% that's it's it's a just Market practice and then they're telling me Oh but now I cannot resell it I said yeah but you didn't complete your payments to receive an nolc from the developer to resell it so in general you cannot resell it and they're like but I was told I said no you were told one thing but whatever is written in your contract is completely another thing number one um number two when uh they buying something off plan with the Roy to come after they going to be rented out they say oh during the campaign it says Roy will be seven or 8% I said this is impossible Roy cannot be 7even or 8% this is a lot of money and they're like yeah so now we received the payment uh from the developer but this is this amount and that and I'm looking at the contract and it doesn't say at all anything about the percentage you're going to receive or there's completely different amount and said it's written over here you cannot sue you signed this you signed this contract yeah but the other broker uh in the sale like the broker from the developer who was marketing this they told me I said it doesn't matter what they told you you need to read the contract if you I don't understand English I say right now we have iPhone you open Google Translate you put your phone above it and it translate any English English any language to any other language you want straight away there so or you can just translate it and read for the days nobody asking you when they're saying like yeah but they were pushing they gave me the contract and they said you need to sign it now I said no you have a right to say I'm going to take this amount of days I need to read it and then you can sign it nobody forcing you to this yeah it's amazing because real estate as an investment is is is one of the safest that everybody is so comfortable to do it so um and and especially as you said people who don't speak the language or coming from a different nationality or whatever they come here to invest in re estate they meet the broker or the developer which sales guys or the market yeah they believe the person and believe them blindly however it's one of the biggest Investments anybody does so you put a lot of money in it sometimes I don't understand why do they not do enough um enough studying or enough reading investigation why don't they get proper legal advice to understand the um the the consequences of signing these agreements before and this is something that I always tell to all the all the investors who are coming here in the UA even who are living here for a while and they're buying their own first home or they they buying their own first investment in real estate signing the agreement is is is a very big obligation that can stay with you and sometimes it's like 20 years when you go into a mortgage and so on I know people who are even working in the legal field they don't read the morgage they don't read the mortgage contract they don't read the SBA and they just read the small for forums and they go ahead and and sign and get into the relationship and when any small thing happen they they they they go back and they um they go back to Someone Like You your fault or they say your fault I I bought it through you you should have told me that then the other thing which is like very common uh when you give the deposit uh um it's usually non-refundable for Off plan and they're saying I want to bring this money back I said if you will refuse to pay now your deposit will be taken away from you this is what's written in your proposal form yeah it's there they don't understand this and it's getting very complicated when they the yeah but legally how am I protected legally I said you are protected legally when you read the contract you understand everything this you can do had like I I know some clients who bought few apartments in the building which was like like Off plan for 1 million years and the developer change and change and change they bought and they said oh now I want to resell it I said that how can you resell it you need to pay the installments and then you can resell it and he said I don't have money I I thought I will invest and then I will find people who want to buy it from me and I will sell it to them but he cannot find the investor slipping strategy or doing the SPV like we already worked with you on this uh the SPV and then find the investors doesn't work so I suggest if you don't have money for this property don't buy it or at least if you don't have money for a 40% payment don't buy it okay buy something cheaper because then it is a huge problem and there will be a big fine and there's a lot of money you are losing and like this is not no go okay if you don't have a backup plan for this situation don't go there it's very complicated and as you know the court takes years it's very expensive you don't know when you're going to win or if you're going to win or no or if it's go to a PE and it's like the I don't know it's just circled in one and then you're staying there with no money with no property is blocked you're paying to the lawyers you're OB paying to the court and and and why like this is very stressful situation for everyone I think yes um if there is one law regarding real estate um investment or rental or something that you would like to change which one would that would that uh I would like to it's related to the rent I would like to separate commercial and uh residential the legislation you want to make how can you have the same legislation for commercial property and residential commercial is usually for a longterm and residential well depends so I think they should be regulated differently okay usually I ask this question in the beginning but I will ask it in the end do you like your job I love my job yeah yeah I enjoy it like so I think like I have the best job even though I was questioning myself as a kid that I wanted to be interior designer but now I understand no I'm supposed to be a lawyer I love it I agree with you you're very good lawyer and I think it's amazing that you love your job I love my job too and uh by this I will end uh this session I don't want to but U time uh is over um thank you very much for coming and thanks here and I think we will invite you back again when the the new law come in separation commercial and residential inshah if that happens ever thank you very much for coming thank you this is your do from Monday legal see you next week