Challenging Confirmation of Housing Status when Purchasing Social Housing

Social housing buyers often face challenges when going to the People’s Committee of the commune/ward to confirm their housing situation, especially if they do not own a house or if their current house does not meet the required size according to regulations.

Previously, according to the 2014 Housing Law, one of the conditions to be eligible for social housing support was to have a permanent residence registration in the province or central city where the social housing is located. In cases without permanent residence registration, a temporary residence registration of at least one year in that province or city was required. This requirement posed difficulties for many migrant workers who could not obtain the necessary paperwork. However, this condition has now been abolished, alleviating the burden on potential buyers.

Despite this positive change, the process of confirming housing situations still presents several issues. Buyers are required to obtain a confirmation letter from the commune/ward People’s Committee stating that they do not own a house, and these authorities often face challenges in providing such documentation.

Specifically, the commune/ward People’s Committee cannot determine whether an applicant for social housing owns a house outside their jurisdiction, or if an applicant lives with their parents who own a house, making it difficult to confirm the individual’s housing status.

Numerous cases have shown that people have waited for years without completing the necessary procedures, highlighting the need to improve regulations regarding income verification and homeownership status.

Attorney Hoang Tuan Vu from the Hanoi Bar Association shared that the most common obstacle relates to land and housing confirmation at the place of residence. Specifically, it is challenging for the commune-level People’s Committee to confirm whether an individual does not own a house in the area or if their current house does not meet the required size as per regulations.

According to Decree 43/2014/ND-CP, the commune-level People’s Committee is not the agency responsible for land management, and they do not have complete land data. Not all land and housing records are managed at the commune level, as records can also be submitted directly to the district level. This makes it difficult for the commune-level authorities to confirm how many houses an individual owns and whether they are eligible to purchase social housing.

However, Decree 10/2023/ND-CP, which amends and supplements Decree 43, has addressed this issue to some extent. The confirmation of the need to purchase social housing has been transferred to the district-level authorities, who are the competent land management agency. “If the individual already owns a house, the commune has the responsibility to verify the average living space per person,” said Lawyer Vu.

According to Lawyer Hoang Tuan Vu, there are still two main issues. First, people still have to go through the procedure of confirming that they do not own a house or that their current house does not exceed the maximum average size. This confirmation process involves administrative procedures and can be time-consuming.

To comprehensively address this issue, Lawyer Vu proposed the development of an electronic identification system for land, integrated with an electronic personal identification system. These two systems should be interconnected and share data. By doing so, all relevant information can be integrated into the citizen’s identity card, allowing for the scanning of the number of houses and land owned.

With the integration of personal identification and real estate database systems, not only will the confirmation process be streamlined, but it will also contribute to the transparency of state management and the real estate market. “I believe it can be done,” said Lawyer Vu, “At the beginning of this year, the Prime Minister directed the research on data-sharing systems.”