Inadequacies in granting red books in apartment buildings and urban areas

(Baonghean) - After many years of living, many people in apartment buildings and urban areas in Vinh City still have not been granted certificates of house ownership, which has caused outrage among the people.

Apartments in Nam Nguyen Sy Sach Apartment Complex have not been issued red books.

It is known that the Nam Nguyen Sy Sach apartment complex has 216 apartments, put into use since 2003, but has not yet been granted a certificate of land use rights for the apartment complex, so the legal documents are not sufficient to apply for a separate "red book" for each apartment. At the Doi Cung apartment complex, also invested by the Hanoi Housing Development Corporation, block C1 has 76 apartments, but only 42 apartments have been granted red books, block C2 has 162 apartments, only 45 red books have been granted, and the other 3 blocks with 121 apartments have not yet been granted red books.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Ha - Head of Finance Department of Hanoi Housing Investment and Development Company No. 30 (investor) explained: For the apartment buildings south of Nguyen Sy Sach, the company has submitted the application procedures to request a certificate of land use rights at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, but there are still unresolved problems.

Regarding Doi Cung Apartment, it is known that: This project is not required to pay land use fees (the State allocated land without land use fees before July 1, 2004 according to the provisions of Decree 71/2001/ND-CP). However, the project implementation process is prolonged, so according to the new regulations, if houses are sold after July 1, 2004, the project investor must fulfill this obligation to the State. Vinh City People's Committee still issues land use right certificates to households, and at the same time, has a document reporting to the Provincial People's Committee to collect land use fees from the investor.

In addition, at the Vinh City Petroleum Building, invested by Nghe An Petroleum Investment and Trading Joint Stock Company, there are currently 90 apartments that have been purchased, but up to now, 100% of the users have not been issued red books. Mr. Tran Luong Son - Project Management Officer of the Company explained: The Company has received 20 sets of documents from people who need to make red books, but due to errors in the documents, only 8 complete sets of documents have been submitted to Quang Trung Ward to apply for the book issuance procedure. The main reason for the delay in issuing books here is that many people buy apartments but do not use them, and some households still do not need to make red books.

Mr. Nguyen Van Chat - Head of Land Management Department (Department of Natural Resources and Environment) added: As for Nam Nguyen Sy Sach apartment building, the common cover for the apartment building has not been issued yet because the investor, Hanoi Housing Investment and Development Company No. 30, has not fulfilled its obligations to the State. This is an apartment building mainly serving resettled people, but the investor also sells it to business households. Because the financial source from the investor has not been clarified, the common cover cannot be issued yet.

As of June 27, 2014, the total number of files received by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (People's Committee of Vinh City) from project owners is 782 files, including 629 files of apartment buildings and 153 files of townhouses. Currently, only 438 certificates have been issued, 51 cases have been transferred for tax but have not yet fulfilled financial obligations, 68 cases are being processed, and 72 cases must be returned to project owners for supplementation. For townhouses and villas, 75 certificates have been issued. In the first 6 months of this year alone, no certificates have been issued. According to a leader of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Vinh City, the reason for the delay in issuing red books is: Some investors do not complete the procedures to be granted construction quality certificates, so there are not enough legal procedures to receive and process the files according to the provisions of law. The project owner's (transferor's) certificate is mortgaged at credit institutions, so there is no certificate to prepare the application for the certificate to the transferee. Some cases have transferred the project to another investor, but have not completed the transfer procedure, and have not adjusted the land user's name on the certificate. Many plots of land, villas, and townhouses have been transferred to households and individuals, but the houses have not been built, so they do not meet the conditions for being granted a certificate according to regulations. Some townhouses and apartments are not built according to the approved design (such as arbitrarily connecting townhouses, building less than the approved number of floors), but the investor has not adjusted the basic design, so the application is returned. Not to mention that some investors have not been active in preparing and completing the application for a certificate for the transferor, so the progress of granting the certificate is still slow.

In addition, for transferees, some have not paid enough money to the project owner, so the project owner did not prepare the documents. There are also cases where the transferee has transferred the apartment or townhouse to another person but did not prepare a notarized contract as prescribed, so the documents were returned. The transfer contract did not follow the prescribed form, transferred too many owners but the signatures of the parties were not complete. Many documents have been processed and transferred to the tax authority, but the households did not fulfill their financial obligations to be granted the certificate.

To speed up the process of granting certificates in urban areas, Vinh City People's Committee has proposed a number of solutions: Vinh City People's Committee continues to disseminate, thoroughly understand, and guide the preparation of documents right at the projects to clarify the procedures for granting certificates, the responsibilities of investors and the responsibilities of transferors in preparing certificate documents. For apartments or land lots that have been transferred to many owners, but currently cannot contact the transferor, the handling is as follows: If the investor has a written commitment, takes responsibility for the sale of the people and requests to grant a certificate to the final transferee, Vinh City People's Committee will still resolve to grant the certificate. Periodically every month, Vinh City People's Committee reports the results to the Provincial People's Committee to have appropriate handling measures for project owners who do not prepare documents for transferees. Strengthen inspection and examination work at projects and urban areas to handle arising problems.

Van Truong