In Ho Chi Minh City, there are over 20,000 records eligible for the issuance of Land Use Rights Certificates and Ownership Rights Attached to Land (pink books), but investors and homebuyers have not yet submitted them. This is a problem that needs to be addressed in order to expedite this process.
Administrative Fines for 24 Projects
According to a report by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment, out of 30,061 eligible records, investors have submitted 9,278, leaving 20,783 records unsubmitted. There are 2 main reasons for this situation: investors have not fully fulfilled their additional financial obligations and mortgaged the project.
Specifically, some projects have planning adjustments, so investors must fulfill additional financial obligations. As for the mortgaging of projects, investors must release the land use rights in order to submit the certificate to the relevant authorities.
Many apartment buildings in Ho Chi Minh City have banners demanding pink books. The reason is that some investors are slow in completing the procedures for issuing the books – Photo: Duy Phuong
Mr. Nguyen Toan Thang – Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said that Decree 91/2019 has revised and significantly increased the fines. The department has penalized many cases of late submission of certificate applications, and if they are not submitted, there will be other sanctions against the investors.
Since Decree 91/2019 took effect, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment Inspection has reviewed and proposed that competent authorities issue decisions to handle administrative violations for 21 projects, with a total revenue of over VND 7.7 billion.
In addition, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment has also prepared penalty records and is submitting them to competent authorities to issue decisions to handle administrative violations for 3 projects. Thus, a total of 24 projects have been administratively penalized so far.
Investors mortgaging projects leaves residents waiting for pink books – Photo: Duy Phuong
Need for Sanctions against Investors
In order to expedite the issuance of pink books, Mr. Le Hoang Chau – Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, said that in the case of project investors having to fulfill additional financial obligations, this is a relationship between the project investor and the state agency, and is not related to the responsibility and obligations of the homebuyers. Therefore, it should be separated and handled separately to resolve the issuance of pink books to customers first, while requiring investors to fulfill their responsibilities.
“It is recommended that the city decide that in cases where people have fulfilled their obligations under the contract, the investor must complete the procedures to grant ownership to the apartment buyer. As for the investor mortgaging the project with the bank, it is between the investor and the bank to resolve,” said Mr. Chau.
Sanctions are needed for irresponsible behavior of investors – Photo: Duy Phuong
In Ho Chi Minh City, the image of banners demanding pink books in apartment buildings is no longer strange. Customers are upset because they have paid for apartments but still have not received pink books. Mr. Le Huu Nghia – Director of Le Thanh Construction Trading Co., Ltd., suggested that investors must commit to issuing at least 50% of ownership certificates for projects to households in need, who are facing difficulties such as needing to borrow money from banks, etc. For the remaining area, investors must commit to paying land use fees when there are records of payment.
