Việt Nam has more than 4,500 apartment buildings in urban areas, including old apartments. VNS Photo Mai Hương

HCM CITY — The HCM City Real Estate Association has proposed removing controversial regulations on apartment ownership termination in the draft revised laws relating to the real estate market.

The Housing Law amendment draft's articles 25 and 26 no longer feature contentious concepts like a definite term for apartment ownership or the extension of the term of apartment ownership as in previous drafts.

Lê Hoàng Châu, HoREA chairman, revealed the update at a workshop on collecting opinions on the drafts amending the Housing Law and the Law on Real Estate Business held in HCM City on February 14.

Việt Nam has more than 4,500 apartment buildings in urban areas, with HCM City accounting for about 1,570, including 474 built before 1975.

However, the current draft of the amended Housing Law includes provisions for terminating apartment ownership when an apartment building receives a demolition notice.

“It is necessary to continue carefully considering these regulations to ensure the synchronisation and consistency of legal provisions," Châu said.

"At the same time, those regulations should meet the needs of most people who want to own an apartment house for an indefinite term associated with long-term land use rights. That will make the owners of apartments feel safe."

Trần Việt Anh, vice chairman of the HCM City Business Association, said those provisions would rise to a series of problems, such as sentiment not like buying condominiums, which will affect the policy of apartment development. That has a great impact on the real estate market, especially in the context that the market is quiet.

For the draft amending Law on Real Estate Business, many experts have proposed that all real estate transactions, except transactions between people of the same bloodline, must be carried out via real estate trading floors to prevent understatement of trading prices.

Lawyer Lê Hồng Nguyên, head of the Việt Nam Bar Federation's representative agency in HCM City, states that many opinions requiring real estate transactions to be carried out at trading floors will create more administrative procedures that will affect the volume of real estate transactions in the market.

However, not trading property products through real estate exchange floors makes it difficult for authorities to control property transactions, especially the true value of transfer contracts on the market. This is because sellers and buyers frequently declare understatement of trading prices.

Tax authorities have devised many solutions to prevent false declarations of trading value or people buying and selling without control over price and cash flow. However, the transparency of the property market is still not guaranteed, making it necessary to regulate real estate transactions that must be done on the real estate trading floors.

Huỳnh Thanh Khiết, Deputy Director of HCM City's Department of Construction, said the drafts of the amended Real Estate Business Law only explain the concepts of different types of individual houses and condominiums, commercial housing, resettlement housing and social housing.

The draft does not include new types of real estate gaining popularity on the domestic market, such as condotels, officetels, serviced apartments and hometels.

According to Khiết, these real estate types have existed for a long time but still lack legality and transparency. There are many potential risks in transfer activities.

The construction system of regulations and technical standards also has no concept of these types.

Therefore, Khiết proposes that the draft includes definitions, regulations and technical standards of those new property types for unification in the understanding of the law and avoiding omissions.