Opening the door to great public debate

Tenement houses illustration photo

Unlike the Ministry of Construction’s (MoC) Official Letter 2544/BXD-QLN dated November 19, 2009 providing provisions on use and management of tenement houses, the draft circular allows conditional use of tenement houses as offices. Accordingly, tenement houses can be used as offices for conventional business transactions only. It cannot be used to serve as production and training facilities, warehouses, offer land and housing brokerage services, or act as property and securities transaction centres.

Head of MoC’s Housing and Property Market Management Department Nguyen Manh Ha assumed that tenement houses were designed for residing purposes, therefore, misuse of these houses would threaten whole building safety standards. He agreed to restricted use of tenement houses as offices to operate production and trading activities or to be used as warehouses.

In this respect, MoC deputy minister Nguyen Tran Nam said the MoC strongly opposed to using tenement houses to offer services which badly influence the surrounding community such trading in karaoke, operating property or securities transaction centres.

It is regulated in the Housing Law that it was impossible to alter the house usage objectives. In case the developer wants to use tenement houses for lease as offices, these houses must have different structures with separate doors, lifts and associated facilities.   

The draft circular entails great concerns to businesses which now lease tenement houses for their offices.

“Our company and many other businesses in Trung Hoa-Nhan Chinh urban area inked long-term leasing contracts with tenants. The enactment of the circular will drive us in a predicament as we need to source new offices at much higher costs,” said Tran Nhu Hung, director of Hung Manh Labour Consulting Company Limited.

Chief of office at Hoang Gia Company Limited Le Thai Long said it would not be easy to find a new suitable office with a modest budget, especially within three months only as under the draft circular businesses not satisfying the requirements have 90 days for removing from the leased tenement houses.

Besides, businesses ask for further state support and compensation for their removal. In fact, if businesses ink long-term leasing contracts and they have to remove, they may face losing the deposit or the forward payment for the tenants. However, these issues were yet to be addressed in the draft circular.