Authority comments are not random. After several hundred submissions the same errors recur, and nearly all of them are caught by a checklist before anything reaches the portal.
Here are the seven we see most, in rough order of frequency.
1. Drawings do not match the affection plan
The submitted layout shows a different unit boundary, area or configuration than the official record. Sometimes the tenant expanded into an adjacent space without the record being updated. Sometimes the drawings were traced from an old set.
The reviewer checks this first, and a mismatch stops the file immediately.
Prevention: survey the actual space and reconcile it against the affection plan before drawing anything. If they genuinely differ, that discrepancy needs resolving with the landlord first.
2. Escape routes compromised by the partition layout
A new meeting room that pushes travel distance beyond the permitted maximum. A store cupboard that narrows a corridor below the required width. A door swinging against the direction of escape.
These are easy to introduce when the layout is driven by commercial requirements and checked for compliance afterwards.
Prevention: check travel distances and corridor widths as the layout develops, not once it is finalised. Moving a wall on paper is free.
3. MEP not coordinated against the architectural set
A sprinkler head where a bulkhead will be built. A duct routed through a fire-rated wall with no detail for the penetration. A distribution board in a position that breaches its clearance requirement.
This happens whenever the architectural and MEP drawings are produced by different parties who never overlay them.
Prevention: a genuine clash check before submission. Not a glance — an actual overlay of every service against the ceiling and partition plan.
4. Missing or expired NOCs
The landlord NOC that was issued four months ago and has since lapsed. The community approval nobody realised was needed. The trade licence that expired between drawing and submission.
Prevention: check every expiry date on the day of submission, not the day the document was collected.
5. Kitchen equipment schedule missing or provisional
Specific to food and beverage, and the most damaging entry on this list. The gas load, the suppression design and the extract sizing all derive from the equipment schedule. Submit with a provisional schedule and every subsequent change forces a redesign and a fresh submission.
Prevention: lock the equipment before the gas and fire design starts. If the operator is still deciding, that is a reason to wait, not to submit something approximate.
6. Electrical load exceeding available supply
Not strictly a drawing error, but it surfaces as a DEWA rejection and it is the most expensive item here. If the building cannot deliver the load, the answer is a supply upgrade measured in months.
Prevention: confirm available capacity in week one on any project with meaningful demand. This single check has saved more programmes than anything else we do.
7. Wrong drawing format for the authority
Trakhees, DM, DMCC and TECOM each have their own submission templates, title-block requirements, layer conventions and file naming. A package assembled for one and submitted to another gets returned on format alone, before anyone reviews the technical content.
Prevention: confirm jurisdiction before drawing, and prepare to that authority format from the start.
What this costs
Each comment cycle adds three to five working days. Two cycles on a project with three authorities running in parallel can add three weeks — on a fit-out where the tenant is paying rent and the contractor is holding a team on site.
The checklist that prevents all seven takes about two hours to run properly.
The underlying point
None of these require specialist knowledge to fix. They require somebody to check, systematically, before the file is uploaded — and to be willing to delay submission by a day rather than submit something that will come back.
That is the difference between a package that clears first time and one that spends six weeks in comment cycles. It is not speed. It is not relationships with reviewers. It is simply not giving them a reason to comment.