Legal procedures for inconvenient real estate projects | Company
In 1999, the Prime Minister allocated land to HCMC Housing Development and Trading Company to invest in infrastructure of An Phu – An Khanh urban area project. Then the chief architect of HCMC signed a decision approving the detailed development of this urban area (after the shareholding in 2015, the successor company is Housing Development and Trading Joint Stock Company – HDTC).
Since 2000, HCMC Housing Development and Trading Company transferred land from An Phu – An Khanh urban area project to some buyers. Of these, some people paid 50% of the land fee, and some even paid 100%. However, after 22 years, buyers still don’t know what their land looks like.
“When we became aware of this urban project, it was relatively legal because the investor is a public company, so we signed a capital contribution contract. Spending a lot of money for a long time, but our profits are still a big zero,” said TCT, who signed a contract to buy land No. 780, bitterly.
In 2000, when people signed contracts and paid money, the price of land there was 2-3 million VND per square meter. The price of land has now reached hundreds of millions of Vietnamese dong per square meter. In response to customer complaints, HDTC has repeatedly given the reason why these lands remain “stranded at the stage of compensation for site clearance, therefore not eligible for disposal”.
More than 19 years ago, Trinh Minh Duc, living in Binh Thanh district, was one of more than 100 clients who signed a contract to bring capital to the Garden Villas project located in the Long Phuoc district of the town of Thu Duc. Each buyer contributed 86 taels of SJC gold to receive 930 square meters of land for a garden villa. However, Song Dat Company, the project executing unit, barricaded and strictly guarded the land, preventing capital providers from accessing and locating the plots of land and asserting their rights over their plots. Angry, Duc filed a lawsuit in District 9 People’s Court, asking Song Dat Company to continue performing the contract. In early 2020, the District 9 People’s Court announced that it accepted the case. Unfortunately, it’s still unclear when customers will receive their pitches.
In the apartment segment, sometimes there are cases where people buy houses but cannot receive them and have to petition everywhere. There are cases where the investor ran away, leaving the clients with resentment, even though the investigative agency pursued the matter.
Dead real estate project due to legal bottlenecks
During the Seminar on Removing Obstacles and Promoting Investment in Real Estate organized by Vietnam International Arbitration Center (VIAC) in collaboration with HCMC Investment and Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) at the end May 2022, Mr. Tran Du Lich, Vice President of VIAC, analyzed that currently, the backlog of legal proceedings has affected hundreds of real estate projects, freezing the capital of the companies put into the project. This is the situation that has existed since the entry into force of the housing law in 2015, resulting in the stagnation of hundreds of housing projects.
Analyzing the bottlenecks, Mr. Nguyen Duy Thanh, General Manager of Global Housing Management Joint Stock Company, said that the regulations more or less cause difficulties in land use fees, investment procedures and construction for many years, so many real estate projects have stalled. Real estate companies are concerned with the attitude and responsibilities of departments and agencies, which makes project documents lengthy.
Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Real Estate Association of HCMC, 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 resolve the issues. related to construction investment procedures. The procedures for calculating project land charges and approving detailed 1:500 scale planning should be expedited. In addition, the procedures for granting ownership certificates for more than 20,000 residential buildings offered by the companies must be dealt with. Eliminating and helping businesses overcome difficulties also means helping the city to relieve budget revenue, increase market supply and cool the real estate market, thereby providing more opportunities for people to settle.