Buying a house without a 'red book': People can sue, local authorities have the responsibility to support

That was the affirmation of Mr. Mai Van Phan - Deputy Director General of the General Department of Land Management (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) at an online exchange session on difficulties in granting "red books" to people, on November 26.

According to Mr. Phan, the process of implementing housing development projects by investors goes through many steps and stages with the control and application of many related laws, in which, investors of some housing development projects violate one or several stages of related laws such as investment procedures, land laws, housing laws, construction laws, and credit finance laws, specifically:

Although the investor has not completed legal procedures for investment projects, investment procedures, land allocation, land use purpose change, land use rights transfer, etc., it has organized the project implementation and sold houses to home buyers.

Deputy Director General of the General Department of Land Administration Mai Van Phan.

Some investors arbitrarily transferred projects to secondary investors without approval from competent authorities, but the secondary investors sold apartments to buyers.

Or some investors carry out construction investment not in accordance with the provisions of the law on construction such as: construction not in accordance with the license or approved detailed design and planning (construction exceeding the area, number of buildings, number of apartments, number of floors, construction in the wrong location, arbitrarily changing the construction density, function of the project); low-rise housing projects do not build houses for sale but still divide and sell plots, leading to land being left fallow for many years, causing land waste.

Some investors have just mortgaged their assets at the Bank, and at the same time organized the sale of assets (apartments) to buyers. There are projects that have not yet been inspected for necessary requirements such as: Fire prevention, electricity and water... but have organized the sale of apartments to customers.

Illustration photo.

According to Mr. Phan, compensation for people who have paid to buy a house but the investor cannot fix the violation and must stop issuing certificates to buyers is the responsibility of the investor according to the provisions of the housing law and land law.

According to Mr. Ha Quang Hung - Deputy Director of the Department of Housing and Real Estate Market Management (Ministry of Construction), the law has provisions to protect the rights of home buyers (regulations to control the maximum amount of money collected from investors) as well as the right to request investors to compensate for damages (if any) in the implementation of agreements in the contract (including the responsibility to carry out procedures and hand over "red books" to people).

People also have the right to sue the investor in court to request the court to protect their rights when the investor does not carry out the procedures to request the competent state agency to carry out the procedures to issue red books to home buyers.

According to Deputy Director of the Department of Land Registration Pham Thi Thinh, people need to pay attention when buying houses in housing development projects to find out information about the legality of the project implemented by the investor at competent state agencies as well as the electronic information portal of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in localities about the announcement of violating investors.

Mr. Ha Quang Hung recommends that, to avoid risks, before buying a house, people should consult a lawyer or ask the investor to provide relevant legal documents of the project, such as: investment policy decision, document confirming the implementation of financial obligations on land, etc.

Has that project been granted a construction permit? Has the foundation been completed? Is there a document from the Department of Construction allowing the sale of future houses? Is there a bank guarantee?

Besides, pay attention to the reputation and capacity of the investor, because if the "root" has problems, it is easy for problems and difficulties to occur later.