I’m really quite honored by the fact that Katara believe in ILQ’s vision. After sitting down with the President of Katara, Bassam and I explained that we needed so much more support than we currently have to be able to raise funds in order to redesign the website, create new functionality, support the community, AND help encourage the community to create their own original content. ILQ is backed by a fantastic community that volunteer for our events and donate their time to help us grow but now it’s time to rely on bigger organizations to take us to the next level.

Our current offices are on Salwa Road (second floor of King Koil) and we’re now moving into Katara! It feels right! Katara not only aims to be an international cultural hotspot, but it’s here to turn Qatar into a vibrant country with great events. I’ll keep you all posted once we finish off the office.

OH! If anyone knows a company that’s reasonable priced and can help us decorate our offices let me know! Not looking for anything extravagant, we just want the offices to look modern and well spaced.

Sadly things have happened and it’s set me back a bit. Sorry to let everyone down. I know many people are excited to see what I have in store…

I thought I might shed some light as to what’s the ‘norm’ when it comes to buying a property and what to do after hand-over.
I’ve recently had the delightful news of having the keys being handed over to me at the Porto Arabia project at The Pearl. I have to admit that I was SHOCKED at the fact that I could hardly find any issues to raise before agreeing to sign the handover form. I’m serious… I did find that one of the sockets was slightly wonky and a bit of paint on one of the tiles but that was it.

For a moment I had thought, wow… they’ve really stepped up their game (side note: different properties have different developers by the way). I was sadly disappointed though when I received an email from the Pearl telling me that I had to sign a document that agreed to The Pearl Owners corporation to maintain the building. It also included ‘community rules’, insurance, and so on. (Wait a minute… I didn’t agree to any community rules… the tenants association should be the ones putting this together in the first place).

Now what annoyed me was how the letter started in explaining that they are appointed by the pearl. As if it’s a done deal. Wait a minute.. we don’t have a choice here? That means they could turn around at any time and say 1 million riyal service charge please.

In this case it had also said that I needed to pay 12,000 in maintanence fees for the year. (It’s a 1 bedroom apartment).

I didn’t hesitate in picking up the phone and contacting one of the property managers at The Pearl to ask about what was going on.

I first started off the phone call by saying that I was surprised by an email I got but before explaining what the email contained, I wanted to know if what I was about to explain was the norm and if the manager agreed with me.

Usually once an apartment is handed over, the developers maintain the property for the period of one year. This is to ensure that any issues with the building, common areas, and so on are taken care of (as it’s part of the snagging process). When reaching the end of the year, a tenants association is put together and they represent the tenants in the building. The tenants association is supposed to take tenders from different management companies and then select the one that would be the best to manage the property on behalf of the tenants.

Usually for at least three months, a maintenance fee is NOT paid. This is because tenants should not have to pay to repair a brand new building. I should also get a copy of what they propose, rules, how they calculate the charges etc..

The manager agreed. I then explained the contents of the email and what I was being asked to sign. He promised to look into this and get back to me.

Now once I hear back, I’ll post an update to this post so check back for more and in the  mean-time, I recommend that you do NOT sign any documents committing to anything after hand-over.

I really do hope this isn’t a case of ‘Buy an apartment from the pearl, be forced to pay a company appointed by the pearl, pay whatever fees the pearl wants, and live by the pearl’s rules as well’.

Not really worth the price of sacrificing freedom in my opinion. This would be another example for why not to buy in Qatar at the moment if this is true… (I really do hope I’m wrong!)

So Dine Out Doha has been getting off to a great start and the reviews and comments are starting to come in! Exciting stuff!

If you haven’t been yet, click here for Dine Out Doha. Be sure to start rating, commenting, posting micro-reviews or even submitting your full fledged restaurant reviews too!

Now you’ll remember we launched what we called the Beta of I Love Qatar at http://beta.iloveqatar.net (it’s actually an alpha). We did something special which was taking the link live even though it was still being built! We did that so that people could watch the site come together! Now the great news is that we should be around 2 and half weeks away from completion!

What’s even more exciting is that we’re going to revealing the awesome new MyLife function as well as the new ILQ Originals which will host a great amount of original content too! We’ve got some great Qatari comics, Online videos, skits, and some stuff that’s under wraps for the moment too.

In the mean while, you can go ahead and sign in (or sign up) in the beta section of ILQ and play around by posting events in the new event section or even start posting in the new forums.

(Don’t worry, you won’t lose anything once we remove the ‘beta’ tag from it).

Anyway! That’s my update!

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I’ve got a soft-spot for Bahrain and Bahrainis. I love the country. I love how progressive many people are and that it’s such a tolerant country. I loved it when I saw this cruiser driving around Qatar, Qatar hearts Bahrain. I even wrote a blog post explaining how I actually envy Bahrainis; see I envy Bahrainis

I’ve been sadened by how some people are trying to turn the current situation into Sunnis vs Shias. Some people tried to turn this into a hate war and even tried to turn this into a joke with cruel humor about why Saudi is getting involved (Jokes going around IN Bahrain!) *sighs*. It should really be a focus on Bahrainis all wanting to live a better life. I stumbled across this which sums it up better than a boring old long blog post of mine could ever put it.

DJ Outlaw put together this song which is amazing. The singers are Flipp, May Al Qasim, Mohammed Janahi, Rashid Hanthal, and Hamad Al Fardan. Yep there’s a Janahi and an Al Fardan contributing to this.

I was at the Red Bull crashed ice event (pics and video will be up soon!) and then headed off to Carrefour (I hate that place) to grab some necessities. While at the check out, there were three Japanese guys who were right in front of me. We got to talking and they mentioned that they were over here for the Fencing Championships (which ends on the 12th of February btw!). They told me that this was their first time over here and that they were leaving tomorrow  night so I offered to show them around Qatar and show them a bit of the famous Qatari hospitality. We went off to the Souq, helped them pick out some souvenire’s, showed them a concert where some famous khaleeji singers were performing, took them for some fresh juice and shawarmas and my favourite sheesha place before dropping them home. I hope they left with a good impression of Qatar

Inshallah these guys will work hard and become champions. It’ll be great to see them on tv one day and be able to tell people I had a sheesha in the souq. Today was really one of those ‘only in Qatar‘ moments.

Here’s Japan’s Team Nexus.

This was already on the front page of iLoveQatar.net but I just wanted to share this awesome video of fireworks going over the skyline. This is probably the BEST video I’ve seen on ND.

More pictures here http://iloveqatar.net/forum/read.php?5,26010

Even MORE pictures on the ILQ Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/926592@N20/

I’ve just come back from Malta (great people there!) and sadly missed the opening of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival BUT some of the ILQ gang went over to Katara to hang out, shake some hands, take some pics and kiss some babies (in no particular order). ILQ also bumped into Salma Hayek. Literally…. smooth Bassam.. real smoooth.

I’ll post some awesome photos as soon as they’re posted on the forums but in the mean time here’s ILQ’s special DTFF logo

Al Dar frustrates the hell out of me and some of the other apartment owners. Not only is Zig Zag still not in the state that it was promised (underground parking has leaks and is filthy, ‘recreation’ area looks unfinished, the damn fire alarm still rings randomly, and elevator L1 is broken (door opens and shuts twice before allowing you to press the floor you want to go to), but now they think that they can do whatever they want in the building.

1) We’re supposed to vote for a new maintanence company and the owners/tenants still haven’t had a transfer yet (who wants to bet they want to try and keep the ownership? They’re making a fortune after all since they’re pocketing the money rather than actually spending it on the building).

2) They don’t do regular sweeps and companies keep putting their marking materials around

3) The security guards are just for show. They just sit there, allow cars to block the entrance and exits, and love just stare at you rather than greet you.

4) They cost cut at any chance they get! (all you have to freaking do is turn down the a/c by ONE degree Dar. ONE degree!

5) They think they actually have the right to tell owners how to live in the tower!

Let’s talk about my last point. I love rules that make sure that everyone’s happy but some of the things they do are ridiculous. I went to the pool today to be surprised at the fact that the filter isn’t on, the pool lights aren’t on (couldn’t find the switch), and was disgusted by the ugly flamingo peach walls they had painted as usual. On the door were a few notices by a company offering swimming lessons. At first I was annoyed that Dar allowed a company to advertise their services by sticking an A4 paper on the glass but then noticed another note by the same company. It was a list of rules for swimming in the pool. I agreed with many but a few just aggravated the hell out of me.

One rule said that guests had to get permission from the management before being allowed to use the pool. Wait what? I am expected to ask the management their permission if I have friends over? Screw that!

Another said that people with long hair (that’s relative but I’ll let it slide), have to wait bathing caps…

Another rule said that people were not allowed to swim solo…. So I guess if you’re living alone you’re pretty much screwed since you have to call the management and if they say no then the President has spoken.

Give us some damn seats to sit on by the pool! Give us some damn shade! Give us a tiny bit of quality!

Aha! So it’s Dar posing as another company? Did they set up another company just to make some MORE money by teaching swimming? PLUS they think that they own the pool? *sighs*

Anyway, I’m just biding me time. They’re not going to take over the building for another year. I’ll fight it with every bone in my body.

They already messed up a beautiful building and I can guarantee that I’ll never buy a property from Al Dar again. I advise you all not to either.