Many housing projects in Ho Chi Minh City were sold to customers on paper by investors 15-20 years ago. However, they are still lying on paper now, causing a waste of time and money and leading to many frustrations for society.
Florita Apartment Building in District 7 in HCMC was handed over to buyers in 2018. However, up to now, the investor has not yet handed over the titles to the residents. (Photo: SGGP)
22 years of projects on paper
In 1999, the Prime Minister allocated land to HCMC Housing Development and Trading Company to invest in infrastructure in the An Phu - An Khanh Urban Area Project. Next, the HCMC Chief Architect signed a decision, approving the detailed land-use planning of this urban area (after equitization in 2015, the successor enterprise is Housing Development and Trading Joint Stock Company - HDTC).
Since 2000, HCMC Housing Development and Trading Company has transferred land plots of the An Phu - An Khanh Urban Area Project to some buyers. Of these, some people paid 50 percent of the land fee, and some even paid 100 percent. However, after 22 years, buyers still have not known what their land plots look like.
“When we learned about this urban project, it was relatively legal because the investor is a State-owned enterprise, so we signed a capital contribution contract. Spending a lot of money for a long time, but our benefits are still a big zero,” T.C.T, who signed a contract to buy land plot No.780, said bitterly.
In 2000, when people signed contracts and paid money, the land price there was at VND2-3 million per square meter. The land price has now reached hundreds of millions of Vietnamese dong per square meter. Responding to customer complaints, HDTC repeatedly gave the reason that these land plots remain “stuck at compensation stage for site clearance, so they are not eligible for handover”.
More than 19 years ago, Trinh Minh Duc, living in Binh Thanh District, was one of more than 100 customers who signed a contract to contribute capital to the Garden Villas Project located in Long Phuoc Ward in Thu Duc City. Each buyer contributed 86 taels of SJC gold to receive a garden villa land plot of 930 square meters. However, Song Dat Company, the project implementation unit, barricaded and strictly guarded the land, making it impossible for the capital contributors to access and locate the land plots and carry out their rights to their land plots. Angrily, Duc filed a lawsuit to the People's Court of District 9, asking Song Dat Company to continue to perform the contract. At the beginning of 2020, the People's Court of District 9 announced to accept the case. Unfortunately, it remains unknown when customers will receive their land plots.
In the apartment segment, sometimes, there are cases in which people buy houses but cannot receive them and have to make petitions everywhere. There are cases where the investor fled, leaving customers with resentment, even though the investigation agency prosecuted the case.
Real estate project died due to legal bottlenecks
At the seminar on Removing obstacles and promoting investment in real estate organized by the Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC) in collaboration with the Investment and Trade Promotion Center of HCMC (ITPC) at the end of May 2022, Mr. Tran Du Lich, Vice Chairman of VIAC, analyzed that currently, the congestion of legal procedures had caused hundreds of real estate projects to be affected, making capital of enterprises put into project freeze. That is the situation that has existed since the Housing Law took effect in 2015, causing hundreds of housing projects to be stagnated.
Analyzing the bottlenecks, Mr. Nguyen Duy Thanh, General Director of Global Housing Management Joint Stock Company, said that the regulations are more or less causing difficulties in the land-use fee, investment procedures, and construction for many years, so many real estate projects have come to a standstill. Real estate companies are concerned about the attitude and responsibilities of departments and agencies, which makes project documents lengthy.
Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of HCMC Real Estate Association, suggested that for real estate and commercial housing projects that are not subject to legal review, inspection, and investigation, the People's Committee of HCMC should soon remove problems related to construction investment procedures. Procedures for calculating project land-use fees and approving detailed planning at the scale of 1:500 should be speeded up. In addition, the procedures for granting ownership certificates for more than 20,000 apartment buildings that enterprises proposed need to be handled. Removing and helping enterprises overcome difficulties also means helping the city debottleneck budget revenue, increasing supply for the market, and cooling down the real estate market, thereby helping people have more opportunities to settle down.
| On April 29, 2022, the HCMC Real Estate Association sent an additional document to the authorities on the recommendations of 29 enterprises to solve entanglements of 102 housing projects in HCMC. |
Source : https://en.diendandoanhnghiep.vn/legal-procedures-fornbsp-real-estate-projects-troublesome-n34461.html
