The handover stage of a project can be tricky, have unique requirements and be the most critical phase of a project that can make or break a successful project completion. The purpose of this research is to identify, rank and assess the impact of delay factors affecting timely completion of handover stage of construction projects in United Arab Emirates. First, extensive literature review and focus groups were used to identify the delay factors affecting handover stage, which were then subjected to a survey in order to rank them based on their significance as rated by the local industry professionals. A total of 30 delay factors were identified and ranked as per their significance index values. Top 5 significant factors were found to be: problems from subcontractors, financial problems of main contractor, time consuming snag lists, poor planning of main contractor, and slow decision-making from the owner. Secondly, project case studies data was collected from multiple construction firms in UAE and regression analyses were performed on this data. Based on the results obtained, a delay estimation model was developed to predict the impact of the earlier identified delay factors. The delay estimation model was successfully validated and had an average accuracy of around 71%. The same research can be performed by future researchers regarding the other stages of a project's life cycle or the same research methodology can also be applied to different markets/regions as the results of this study are region specific.