According to the provisions of Article 15 of Circular No. 05/2024/TT-BXD dated July 31, 2024 of the Minister of Construction detailing a number of articles of the Housing Law, the first condominium conference defines the voting participants at the conference as apartments that have been handed over, not including apartments that the investor retains for sale.

However, Article 17 of Circular No. 05/2024/TT-BXD regulating the annual condominium conference does not clearly state whether the definition of these handed over apartments includes apartments that the investor retains for sale or not, only stating generally that the apartments have been handed over.

This leads to controversy in the condominium conference about whether the definition of apartments handed over at the first conference is different from the annual conference or not. The investor used 112 votes at the annual condominium meeting to completely overwhelm the residents in increasing the management fee, approving the disbursement of maintenance funds and approving all proposals of the Management Board. The residents also could not replace another Management Board due to insufficient votes.

Mr. Long asked, is the definition of handed-over apartments (excluding apartments retained by the investor and not sold) in Article 15 only applied to the first condominium meeting and not applied to the annual condominium meeting or the extraordinary condominium meeting as explained by the investor?

The Ministry of Construction responded to this issue as follows:

Clause 1, Article 145 of the 2023 Housing Law stipulates that the Apartment Building Conference is a conference of apartment building owners or users if the apartment building owner does not attend;…

Clause 19, Article 2 of the 2023 Housing Law stipulates that the apartment building owner is the owner of the apartment building, the owner of the area other than the apartment in the apartment building.

Point b, Clause 1, Article 41 of Regulation 05 stipulates that the apartment building owner has the right to attend the Apartment Building Conference and vote on the contents of the Apartment Building Conference meeting according to the provisions of the Housing Law and this Regulation.

Point b, Clause 2, Article 18 of Regulation 05 stipulates that in the case of organizing an extraordinary apartment building conference and an annual apartment building conference, the participants include representatives of apartment owners who have received the handover, representatives of the investor (if the investor still owns the area in the apartment building), representatives of the management and operation unit (if the apartment building must hire a management and operation unit) and invited representatives of the People's Committee at the commune level;...

In Clause 3, Article 18 of Regulation 05, it is stipulated that the voting rights at the apartment building conference, apartment building cluster is calculated according to the private ownership area of the apartment owner, the owner of other areas in the apartment building according to the principle that 1 m2 of private ownership area is equivalent to 01 vote.

Thus, in case the investor still owns the area in the apartment building, he/she can exercise the rights and responsibilities of the apartment building owner, including the right to attend the Apartment Building Conference (first, extraordinary and annual) and vote at the Apartment Building Conference.

Above is the response of the Ministry of Construction to the reflection and recommendation of Mr. Nguyen Dang Long for him to know and study and implement in accordance with the provisions of law.