Villa delay cost estimator

The short answer: a month's delay on a villa build costs the owner the rent or hotel they are still paying, the interest on money already borrowed, the rise in the price of the work not yet built and, if the delay is on the owner's side, the contractor's time-related site costs. Fees that run by the month come on top. The estimator adds those up, line by line.

1. Rent or hotel. The monthly figure you enter. The default is Engel & Völkers' average Dubai rent for a four-bedroom villa, AED 343,461 a year as of May 2026 (three bedrooms AED 212,220; five bedrooms AED 546,924), from Property Monitor data.^[1] It is the same in every column.
2. Finance. Money borrowed multiplied by the annual rate, divided by twelve. The default rate is the Central Bank of the UAE's base rate, raised to 3.9% from 17 September 2026.^[2] It is the floor for overnight money-market rates, not what a bank charges for a loan, so enter your own rate.
3. Escalation. The value of the work still to build, multiplied by a month's construction inflation. For 2026, Turner & Townsend forecast 4% in Dubai and 5% in Abu Dhabi,^[3] and Currie & Brown about 3% for the UAE.^[4] The low column uses 3%, the high column Turner & Townsend's figure for the emirate, and the likely column the midpoint.
4. Contractor's extended site costs. Off by default. If the delay is on the owner's side (late decisions, late design information, late payment), the contractor may be entitled to more time and its time-related costs. The estimator spreads Turner & Townsend's preliminaries, 12% of construction cost on a 2,500 m² project in Dubai and 15% in Abu Dhabi,^[3] over a construction phase of 8–14 months:^[5] the shortest build gives the highest monthly figure. Treat it as an order of magnitude; the contract and the records decide what is actually due.
5. Professional fees. Whatever monthly fees continue under your appointments. There is no published benchmark, so nothing is assumed.

From the builder's side, the cost of delay was always easier to see from the contractor's chair than from the owner's: site cabins, supervision and plant hire run by the week whether work moves or not. The owner's costs are quieter but often larger, because rent and finance never stop. When a build has stalled, our guide to what to do when a villa build stalls covers the first ten days, and a stalled project review puts a number on the way back.