Dubai South projects by launch and stated handover year (2026)
Four current Dubai South project families in this comparison span launches from April 2024 to July 2025, while their current first-party records state handover windows from Q3 2026 to Q3 2028. Those dates are not interchangeable with the DLD registry fields checked on 25 September 2026, so the useful comparison keeps each clock on its own line.
Dubai South projects at a glance
The cleanest comparison is four project families, each anchored to a current first-party page and a dated launch record. An off-plan property is sold before construction and handover are complete. Handover is the developer's customer-facing possession or completion milestone; the sale and purchase agreement, or SPA, carries the unit's contractual wording.
The DLD rows come from the official Project Status Enquiry, queried by name and project number on 25 September 2026. The broader Dubai South project-status master preserves the construction evidence for additional phases; this companion concentrates on launch chronology and the payment wording visible on current developer pages.
The launch chronology runs from April 2024 to July 2025
South Bay phase 4 starts this set on 3 April 2024, followed by South Living on 5 June 2024, Hayat on 30 June 2025 and Windsor House on 31 July 2025. These are developer announcement dates, not DLD registration dates.
3 April 2024: South Bay phase 4
Dubai South Properties announced phase 4 on 3 April 2024 and stated Q1 2027 completion. The current Dubai South live overview still carries South Bay as a project family, but it does not publish a replacement completion date or payment plan. The dated phase statement is therefore the latest normally fetchable first-party date used here.
5 June 2024: South Living
Dubai South Properties announced South Living on 5 June 2024. Its current project page states Q3 2026 handover and a five-year plan. A construction announcement dated 10 September 2024 stated Q1 2027 completion and described a post-handover plan. Both statements belong to the developer, but the current page is the current customer-facing record. The difference is reported without assigning a cause or rewriting either date.
30 June 2025: Hayat
Dubai South Properties launched Hayat on 30 June 2025, stating Q2 2028 completion for the first phase and a five-year plan beginning with 5%. The current Hayat page, linked to a Hayat 4 and 5 brochure, now states Q3 2028 and a different staged plan. This comparison uses the current page for the present claim and keeps the launch-page values in the chronology.
31 July 2025: Windsor House
Ellington announced Windsor House on 31 July 2025. The current project page states Q3 2028 handover and publishes every payment milestone. Its DLD project number, 4035, lets the developer page and registry result be kept separate without relying on a marketing-family match.
Developer handover and DLD status answer different questions
The DLD record identifies the registered project and reports a status, completion percentage and completion-date field. DLD says its Project Status Enquiry accepts a land number, project number or project name and returns completion percentage and project details, as of September 2026.
Escrow is also a registry concept with a narrow meaning here. DLD's Register Project service says project registration includes opening an escrow account for off-plan sales. In this article, escrow listing present means the live DLD result displayed an escrow agent and populated account field. It does not establish the balance, movement or treatment of any buyer's payment.
The South Living result shows why identity matching matters. Searching DLD by that name returned project 1946, with a registration date of 30 August 2017 and a start date of 5 January 2018, years before the developer's 5 June 2024 launch page. That result is not assigned to the current project in this comparison. A matching name alone is weaker than a matching project number, developer and chronology.
For South Bay 4 Premium, Hayat 4, Hayat 5 and Windsor House, the developer and project identities matched the named DLD records. Their percentages are a snapshot from 25 September 2026, not a forecast of the remaining programme.
Payment plans need their own evidence date
The payment-plan comparison is most useful when it reports only what the current official page states. It does not convert a marketing plan into unit availability, a financing offer or a transaction schedule.
South Bay phase 4: no current plan stated
The current Dubai South overview confirms South Bay as a project family, and the dated phase announcement supports the Q1 2027 statement. Neither normally fetchable page published a current payment schedule in this run. The accurate entry is therefore not stated, not a plan copied from a portal or an older brochure.
South Living: five years, without a current stage split
The current South Living page states a five-year payment plan but does not break it into booking, construction, handover and post-handover shares. The 10 September 2024 construction announcement described a post-handover plan without publishing the instalments. A buyer comparing cash timing needs the current written schedule for the specific contract rather than a subtotal inferred from the plan length.
Hayat: four stages total 100%
The current Hayat page states 10% down, 55% during construction, 25% at handover and 10% post-handover over 12 months in two instalments. The property-price stages total 100%: 10 + 55 + 25 + 10. The page separately names other charges; they are outside that 100% property-price split and outside this comparison.
The existing Hayat project record provides the project-specific context. For chronology, the important point is that the 30 June 2025 launch announcement used a different plan description, five years beginning with 5%, while the current page publishes the four-stage split above.
Windsor House: 70% before completion, 30% on completion
That structure is the clearest milestone schedule in this four-project set. It is still a developer-page claim accessed on 25 September 2026, not a substitute for the payment schedule attached to an SPA.
Match the project to the question you are trying to answer
South Bay phase 4 is the clearest fit for comparing an earlier multi-phase villa launch with an advanced DLD percentage and a developer completion statement. Its current public overview does not supply a payment schedule, so it fits a stage comparison better than a cash-timing comparison.
South Living is the strongest test of identity discipline. Its current page gives a handover quarter and plan length, while the DLD name result does not align with the launch chronology. It fits a buyer who wants to know exactly what must be resolved before treating a registry result as evidence for the current project.
Hayat offers the most explicit post-handover structure in this set. Its current page and DLD phase records can be matched to Hayat 4 and 5, while the launch page preserves the earlier first-phase wording. The official escrow-check workflow shows how to repeat that project-number check.
Windsor House has the most granular current payment schedule here. It fits a milestone comparison because every stage can be recomputed and the DLD record has a distinct project number. The developer Q3 2028 date and DLD 31 July 2029 field remain side by side because neither should be silently converted into the other's meaning.
Sources and method
The inclusion date is 25 September 2026. Current project pages came from Dubai South Properties and Ellington; launch dates came from their dated newsrooms. DLD status, completion percentage, completion-date field and escrow listing were checked separately through the official Project Status Enquiry.
The table is not a catalogue of every Dubai South development. A project was included only when a current first-party page, a dated launch source and a usable handover or plan statement were normally fetchable. Portal inventory and unit availability were excluded. Where a first-party page did not state a plan, the table says so. Where DLD identity could not be resolved confidently, the table preserves that limit.
Which Dubai South projects are compared here?
South Bay phase 4, South Living, Hayat phases 4 and 5, and Windsor House. Each had a current first-party project page and a dated developer launch record available on 25 September 2026.
Does DLD Active mean a handover date has been met?
No. Active is the registry status displayed on the evidence date. Read it beside the completion percentage, developer statement and the SPA without treating those fields as interchangeable.
Is a DLD escrow listing the same as a payment guarantee?
No. In this comparison it means the DLD result displayed an escrow agent and a populated account field. It does not establish what has happened to a particular buyer's payment.
Why can a developer handover date differ from the DLD completion-date field?
They are separately labelled fields from different sources and update cycles. Preserve both with their evidence dates, then use the SPA for the unit's contractual wording.
