Inconveniences surrounding apartment maintenance fees in Vinh city

Many problems

According to the 2014 Housing Law, after the apartment building elects a Management Board, the investor is responsible for transferring all maintenance fees to the Management Board to carry out maintenance and repair of common property items in the apartment building.

Many apartment buildings in Nghe An have not yet established a Management Board. Photo: QA

However, in reality, the handoverapartment maintenance feeIn Nghe An, there are still many shortcomings. One of them is that many apartment buildings have not yet established a Management Board to operate the building, so this amount of money has not been handed over. Data from the Vinh City Urban Management Department shows that up to now, the whole city still has 21 apartment buildings that have not established a Management Board for many reasons, such as residents not wanting to participate, not being able to arrange time, the policy for the Management Board is not clear, etc.

For example, in Ben Thuy ward, there are 3 apartment buildings, including Ben Thuy, Trung Do Cooperative and Gia Thinh Phat, but up to now, all 3 buildings have not yet established a Management Board. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Huan - Chairman of Ben Thuy Ward People's Committee said: These apartment buildings have held meetings many times to elect a Management Board, however, they have not reached an agreement on selecting people as well as criteria, so no apartment building has a Management Board. The ward has also requested and urged many times but there have been no results.

Quang Trung Ward has the most apartment buildings in Vinh City. Photo: QA

Quang Trung Ward has the largest number of apartment buildings in Vinh City, with 22 buildings, but the number of apartment buildings with established Management Boards can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Therefore, the maintenance fee is still being held by the investor and has not been handed over.

On the other hand, there are cases where the apartment building has established a Management Board, but the investor deliberately avoids and does not fully hand over the maintenance fee as prescribed.
For example, at Truong Thi Petroleum Apartment, Truong Thi Ward, this building established a Management Board in 2018, with 5 members, of which 4 are apartment residents and 1 is from the investor. Up to now, the investor has not yet handed over all maintenance fees to the Management Board, while many items of the building have begun to deteriorate.

The investor of the Truong Thi Petroleum apartment building avoids handing over maintenance fees to the Management Board. Photo: QA

According to the building's Management Board, up to now, the investor has only handed over about 500 million VND, and still owes 1.1 billion VND in maintenance fees. This is the amount that residents have contributed to the maintenance and upkeep of the apartment building, but the investor has repeatedly delayed and not handed over to the Management Board for repairs, causing the items to increasingly deteriorate.

On April 7, 2023, the Management Board of Truong Thi Petroleum Apartment Building submitted a petition to the People's Committee of Nghe An Province, the Provincial Police and the People's Committee of Vinh City... regarding the investor of the apartment building deliberately delaying and avoiding paying the maintenance fee as prescribed. The petition stated that although the investor had committed to hand over the apartment maintenance fee (nearly 1.1 billion VND) by November 30, 2022, to date, the investor has not coordinated or responded to the Management Board about the debt repayment commitment plan.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Kiem - Head of the Management Board of Truong Thi Petroleum Apartment Building was upset: In 2022, after 12 years of operation, the building showed signs of deterioration, with the entire exterior paint peeling off. Due to not being able to collect funds from the investor, residents had to contribute money themselves, each household from 2 - 5 million VND to hire workers to repaint the building, while this item is included in the maintenance fee that needs to be put into use, but because the investor did not pay, they had to call on residents to contribute even though they were very upset.

The corridor walls of Truong Thi Petroleum apartment building are peeling, the elevator is frequently broken. Photo: QA

A similar situation also occurred at Trung Duc apartment building, which established a Management Board in early 2022. However, the investor deliberately did not hand over the maintenance fee, even though the apartment building had some degraded items that needed to be repaired. Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, representative of the Management Board of this apartment building, said: After many months of submitting a petition, the investor also handed over the maintenance fee of nearly 3.8 billion VND contributed by residents, however, they continued to avoid and did not hand over the fee that the investor also had to contribute according to regulations. We have currently worked with a number of law offices to submit a petition to the competent authorities, requesting the investor to fulfill its responsibilities.

In fact, in Vinh City, there are still apartment building investors who have not fully handed over maintenance fees to the Management Board as prescribed. Mr. Hoang Manh Cuong - Vice Chairman of Vinh Tan Ward People's Committee said: There are currently 10 apartment buildings in the area, of which 9 buildings have established management boards, of which 4 buildings have basically handed over maintenance fees to the management board, the remaining 5 buildings have not yet fully handed over, affecting the maintenance and repair of common property items of the building.

Need for transparency in the use of maintenance fees

Currently, a number of residents living in apartments, although paying maintenance fees, do not pay attention to who manages and uses this fee. Many people even confuse maintenance fees with monthly apartment service fees calculated based on the area of ​​each apartment.

The elevator of Glory Palace apartment building is constantly broken, making residents angry. Photo: QA

At Glory Palace apartment building, Cao Huy Dinh street, Vinh city, recently many items have been continuously degraded and damaged, especially the elevator, the corridor floor is peeling... It is worth mentioning that although the Management Board has been established for 7 years, it has not been operating effectively, some members of the Management Board have moved to live elsewhere, leading to the maintenance fee not being able to be handed over, currently the investor is holding it. Every time there is a damaged item, the investor mobilizes workers to repair it, however, according to the apartment residents, they do not know how much the repair cost is, from which source, whether the investor uses it in the 2% maintenance fee contributed by the residents and held by the investor or not...

At Tan Phuc apartment building, Vinh Tan ward, the list of apartment maintenance fee payments from 2011 - 2021 is over 790 million VND, but some payment vouchers only state the general payment amount as "Payment for Tan Phuc apartment maintenance fee", without clearly stating the payment for what repair and maintenance items, how degraded, this makes many people wonder.

Tan Phuc apartment building is located on Le Mao street (Vinh city). Photo: QA

According to the provisions of the Housing Law 2014, the Management Board of the apartment building is responsible for managing and using the maintenance fund for the right purpose, for the right items that need maintenance according to the maintenance plan approved by the annual Apartment Conference. The use of maintenance funds must have financial invoices, payment and settlement according to the provisions of the law on finance and must be reported to the Apartment Conference. However, in the past, the use of apartment maintenance fees in many apartment buildings has been lacking in transparency, causing conflicts between residents and the Management Board.

Currently, residents in apartment buildings all want investors to soon hand over maintenance fees to the Management Board for proper use in maintaining and repairing degraded items. At the same time, the Management Board elected by residents must have real management expertise, responsibility, transparent revenue and expenditure, not for personal gain and publicly disclosed to residents. People also recommend that authorities strengthen supervision and strictly handle investors and Management Boards that do not hand over maintenance fees or use fees in a non-transparent or improper manner.

Apartment maintenance fees are used to maintain and repair common property items of the building such as elevators, fire protection systems, etc. Photo: QA

A representative of the Housing and Real Estate Management Department, Nghe An Department of Construction, said: Maintenance fees are one of the pressing issues, potentially causing disputes between residents and investors in current apartment buildings. Therefore, since November 2022, the Provincial People's Committee has established an interdisciplinary team led by the Department of Construction to review and inspect the compliance with regulations on the operation and management of apartment buildings after investment, including issues related to maintenance fees. The team is currently in the process of checking, collecting data and will report to the Provincial People's Committee in the near future./.