Unveiling the Truth: EcoCity Premia Đắk Lắk’s Dark Secrets and Legal Violations

On May 26th, the People’s Court of Đắk Lắk province will open an appeal trial for a civil case regarding a dispute over a house purchase agreement and a request for compensation between the plaintiff, Mr. Nguyen Van Le (Buon Ma Thuot city), and the defendant, Dak Lak Urban Development and Investment Joint Stock Company (investor of the Ecocity Premia project).

Previously, this dispute was tried in the first instance by the People’s Court of Buon Ma Thuot city (Dak Lak) in September 2024. As a result, the first-instance court accepted the plaintiff’s request. The defendant then filed an appeal.

According to the first-instance verdict, Mr. Nguyen Van Le signed or was assigned a total of 12 contracts for the purchase of houses in the Ecocity Premia Urban Area Project (also known as the Km7 Urban Area Project, located in Tan An ward, Buon Ma Thuot city).

These contracts were divided into two groups: Group 1 consisted of 6 houses for which nearly 95% of the contract value had been paid, and Group 2 consisted of the remaining 6 houses for which nearly 70% had been paid.

According to the contracts, the deadline for handing over the houses was November 15, 2022. However, by November 30, 2022, the company had only handed over 6 house handover protocols to Mr. Le for the Group 1 houses.

As for the Group 2 houses, the company had not handed over the protocols to Mr. Le, citing his failure to make the final payment.

However, it was not until December 15, 2023, that the Department of Natural Resources and Environment concluded that the company met the conditions for transferring land use rights and selling houses for 545 houses.

On July 1, 2024, the Department of Construction notified its approval of the inspection results of the project’s construction completion by the investor.

Thus, as of November 15, 2022, the company did not have the conditions to hand over the 12 apartments to Mr. Nguyen Van Le.

As the company had not completed the investment in the construction of technical infrastructure and social infrastructure in accordance with the project schedule approved by the People’s Committee of Đắk Lắk province, its notification and handover of the 12 apartments to Mr. Le was a violation of regulations.

Furthermore, despite not meeting the conditions, the company had collected over 70% of the value of the 12 signed contracts, which was a violation of the 2014 Law on Real Estate Business. Specifically, the company had collected more than VND 25.8 billion out of VND 27.3 billion.

Based on the above grounds, the Buon Ma Thuot City Court accepted the plaintiff’s request: to annul the notices of house handover and debt reminder issued by the company regarding the 12 houses; to annul the 6 house handover protocols dated November 30, 2022, for Group 1; and to require the company to continue performing the 12 house purchase contracts with Mr. Le.

The company was ordered to compensate for damages due to the delay in handing over the houses from November 15, 2022, to the date of the trial (September 23, 2024), totaling more than VND 14.9 billion.

Additionally, the first-instance court ordered the company to compensate for damages in the form of bank loan interest for the disbursed amount of the final payment for the 6 Group 1 houses, amounting to over VND 1.1 billion. Thus, the total amount that the Dak Lak Urban Development and Investment Joint Stock Company had to pay to Mr. Nguyen Van Le was more than VND 16 billion.