Marsa Al Saadiyat Payment Plan and Off-Plan Mortgage: Buying Under the ADREC Framework

What an Aldar payment plan looks like

Marsa Al Saadiyat’s plan will be published with its price list, and nothing below is that plan. What exists is Aldar’s recent form. On Saadiyat Lagoons the Ethir and Al Sidr villas sold on a 40/60 plan with 10% at booking, instalments through construction to 40% and the remaining 60% at handover. On its current mid-market Abu Dhabi launches, The Canopies and Al Ghadeer Parks, the published structure is 55/45 with 5% down. Live Aldar projects on Saadiyat have taken 5% to 10% at booking. The pattern is a light deposit, a construction-linked run of instalments, and a large handover payment. That last part is the number to plan around. On a 40/60 plan the day of the keys costs more than every instalment before it combined, which is why the ADREC mortgage route described below matters so much for an Aldar buyer. On a 55/45 plan the handover balance is smaller and the construction-period cash larger. Aldar has also run promotions on specific releases, fee waivers and the like, which are announced per launch and should not be assumed. The safe assumption for Marsa Al Saadiyat is the plain structure, and a pleasant surprise if the launch offers more.

Why Abu Dhabi instalments track the building

Abu Dhabi ties off-plan instalments to construction by regulation. Under Law 2 of 2025 every buyer payment goes into a project-specific escrow account at an approved bank, released to the developer only against construction milestones verified by approved engineering consultants. The developer cannot draw on the account at all until at least 20% of the works are complete, unless ADREC approves an earlier release under Decision 24 of 2025, which requires the developer to have been registered for at least four years, to have delivered at least three projects on schedule, and to post a bank guarantee of not less than 20% of the construction value. Aldar meets those tests; a newer developer does not. The effect on you is that the plan’s percentages are not arbitrary. Each instalment is due against a stage of the building, and if the building slips, the instalment slips. That is different from a date-linked Dubai plan, and it is the reason the off-plan mortgage guide on this site describes Abu Dhabi as the emirate where a buyer who has paid 50% is buying into a building that is broadly at that stage. The first check before any money moves is the escrow account. Verify the project’s registration and account number on ADREC’s DARI platform and pay only into that account. A request to pay anywhere else is a breach of the law and a reason to walk away.

The fees around the plan

The ADREC off-plan mortgage framework

On 4 September 2026 Aldar and ADCB completed Abu Dhabi’s first off-plan mortgage under a new framework from the Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre. The framework lets a financing bank be named on the mortgage registration for an off-plan unit before handover, in the interim register. In practice a buyer who has paid 50% of the price can arrange a mortgage against the unit, and the bank funds the remaining instalments and the final handover payment as they fall due. Aldar runs it through Home Finance by Aldar, its in-house advisory, at no fee, with a panel of ADCB, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD, Emirates Islamic and First Abu Dhabi Bank. Pre-approvals typically hold for 12 months and renew to handover, so the sensible sequence is a pre-approval at booking, which fixes your affordability and rate structure, and the drawdown the day the instalments cross 50%. For a Marsa Al Saadiyat buyer this changes the whole shape of the purchase. Instead of finding the handover balance in cash on the day of the keys, you pay to the halfway line and the bank carries the rest. One detail to settle at booking: on a 40/60 plan the 50% line is only reached at handover unless Aldar lets you pay ahead of the schedule, so ask how the plan and the framework fit together before you rely on it. The framework belongs to ADREC rather than to Aldar, and other developers are expected to join it, but Aldar is the developer it was built and tested with.

The Central Bank caps still apply

The framework changes when a bank can lend, not how much. A loan on a property under construction is capped at 50% of price for every borrower, resident or not. The total loan may not exceed seven times annual income (eight for UAE nationals). Total monthly commitments after the mortgage must stay under 50% of income, with the repayment tested at a rate two percentage points above the offer. The term is 25 years at most and the loan must be repaid by 65 for salaried borrowers or 70 for the self-employed. The loan you get is the smallest of those ceilings. On an expensive Saadiyat unit the income tests bite before the 50% cap does, which is why the worked example below carries an income figure. Non-residents can use the same rules on paper but only a few banks fund off-plan before handover for buyers without a UAE income, usually at 50% to 60% of value with a rate premium, so a non-resident should plan on a larger cash share. The off-plan mortgage checker on this site runs all three tests on your numbers and tells you whether the door is open now or how much more you need to pay to reach it.

A worked example, clearly hypothetical

Take a hypothetical AED 5 million waterfront apartment at Marsa Al Saadiyat, on a hypothetical construction-linked 50/50 plan with 10% at booking, financed at 50% under the ADREC framework by a salaried resident on a 25-year term at 4.5%. Every number below is illustrative; Aldar has published neither the price nor the plan. At booking: AED 500,000 deposit and AED 100,000 to ADREC, AED 600,000 in cleared funds plus Aldar’s administration fee. Through construction: instalments to 50% of the price, another AED 2 million, due against milestones. At that point the bank registers on the unit and funds the remaining AED 2.5 million, the handover balance, as it falls due. The loan: AED 2.5 million at 4.5% over 25 years is about AED 13,900 a month. The bank tests you at 6.5%, about AED 16,900, so with no other borrowing you need income of roughly AED 34,000 a month for the debt burden test, and about AED 30,000 for the seven-times-income test; the debt burden test binds. Mortgage registration is AED 1,000, the trustee AED 1,575 and the valuation around AED 3,000. The total cash before the bank steps in is AED 2.6 million plus fees, over the construction period rather than on the day. Change the plan to 55/45 and the bank’s share of the purchase falls to 45%; change it to 40/60 and the 50% line is reached only at handover unless the developer accepts payment ahead of schedule. The payment plan calculator on this site runs any split against a real calendar, and the off-plan mortgage checker sizes the loan.

The Golden Visa, and why the plan shape matters for it

A registered purchase of AED 2 million qualifies for the 10-year Golden Visa, and an off-plan unit qualifies once registered. Abu Dhabi applies the threshold differently from Dubai: in practice it requires AED 2 million to have actually been paid, so unpaid instalments and a mortgage balance do not count. On the hypothetical AED 5 million unit above, the threshold is crossed at 40% paid, which on a construction-linked plan is before handover and before the bank is registered. On a cheaper unit the line falls later in the plan, and on a unit under AED 2 million it is never crossed on the purchase alone. Plan the visa around the instalments, not the booking. The Golden Visa checker on this site applies the emirate’s rule to your price and plan, and the fees run AED 9,500 to 13,500 per applicant.