Doors that were fine at handover and catch six months later almost always trace back to the same handful of things, and all of them are decided during installation rather than afterwards.

The frame was fixed to the wall, not to itself

A door frame has to be plumb, level and square in its own right, and the opening it sits in usually is not. Packers behind each fixing point are what hold the frame true and transfer the door's weight into the wall. Skip them, or use too few, and the frame bows to match the opening once the door's weight starts working on it — so the gap closes at one corner and the door begins to catch. Nothing done to the hinges afterwards fixes a frame that was never packed, which is why some doors get adjusted three times and still bind.

Fixings into plaster and tile

Behind the plaster in most Dubai villas and apartments is blockwork, and a fixing needs to reach it. A plug seated in plaster or in tile adhesive holds for a while and then creeps, taking the frame with it. This is also why fitting a door into a tiled reveal is slower work than it looks — the drilling has to get through the tile without cracking it and still land in something solid.

Clearances set too tight

A door needs a consistent gap around three sides and a bigger one at the bottom. Set the sides too tight and normal seasonal movement is enough to make the door bind — timber takes up moisture in a humid coastal apartment and gives it back in a dry inland villa, and the leaf changes size slightly either way. A door that just clears in February will not clear in August.

The gap at the bottom, which is not a mistake

Internal doors in an air-conditioned home need a gap underneath so return air can get back to the AC. Seal a bedroom door tight to the floor and the room is starved of return air, the unit works against itself, and the room never quite cools. Owners often ask for that gap to be closed to keep dust or noise out — it is worth understanding what closing it costs before deciding, and if a room genuinely has to be sealed, it needs a transfer grille or a return path somewhere else.

No door stop

The cheapest component on the job and the one most often left off. Without a stop, the handle goes into the wall behind it, and on a plastered block wall that is a hole within a month. Fitting stops at the same time costs almost nothing.

Entrance doors from an apartment into a common corridor, and doors onto stairwells and lobbies, are normally fire-rated in Dubai towers. That matters because a fire door is a certified assembly rather than a heavy door: the leaf, the frame, the intumescent seals, the hinges, the closer and the gaps around the leaf are all tested together, and swapping any part of it for something uncertified voids the rating. Gap tolerances on a fire door are tight and specified, which is exactly the opposite of the generous clearances an ordinary internal door wants.

The practical consequence is that changing an apartment entrance door is not a like-for-like job you arrange privately. It changes the corridor, so building management and the owners association have a say, and where the door is rated the replacement has to be a certified set installed as a certified set. Ask building management before ordering anything, and expect them to specify what the replacement must be.

Internal doors inside your own apartment are a different matter entirely and generally need nobody's permission, though the building will still want a works permit, agreed hours and a lift booking to bring the doors up.