Housing projects will be proposed to sell land parcels, says ministry

A land lot in Da Nang. Housing projects are proposed to sell land lots. - Photo diendandatdai.com

This is the regulation proposed at the end of May by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in the latest version of the draft amending and supplementing Decree 43 on specific regulations for a number of articles in the Land Law, including conditions for transferring land use rights at housing projects.

According to the April version of the amended draft, the housing projects nationwide are not allowed to sell land lots.

Real estate experts said the ban of selling land lots would have strong impact on the domestic real estate market and it is very difficult to implement this ban.

Nguyen Tran Nam, chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Association said the proposal on banning the sale of land lots is not suitable with both legal and practical issues, causing many difficulties for businesses and the people.

The ministry has the ban with good target of stopping illegal actions in trading land lots to cheat buyers over past time, Nam said. The fault is real estate market management of local authorities but not due to the regulations.

Nam said the market has high demand on trading land lots for investment while the State could collect tax from transferring land use right.

The problems on the land lot market at present included not close management for the market of the authorities and intransparent information about planning of housing projects in particular and the property market in general, he said.

Le Xuan Nghia said most of Vietnamese real estate enterprises are small and medium sized ones with limited financial capacity so they have often had land lot projects to recover capital quickly, ensuring cash flow to develop new larger projects.

Nghĩa said giving approval for selling land lots should depend on each housing project and each location because the general construction planning at present is not synchronised.

Trần Kim Chung, deputy director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said the market still has demand on trading of land lots so the State should not ban this activity.

The permission of selling land lots is a policy decision and the issuance of this decision should be suitable with the practice.