Protecting customer rights!

According to Clause 5, Article 23 of the 2023 Law on Real Estate Business, the investor of a real estate project is only allowed to collect a deposit of no more than 5% of the selling price; and to lease-purchase houses, construction works, or floor area within construction works when all conditions for putting them into business have been met as prescribed.

Along with regulations on deposits, Article 25 of the 2023 Law on Real Estate Business also stipulates the payment for buying and selling or lease-purchasing houses on paper. Accordingly, the parties make payments in multiple installments, with the first installment not exceeding 30% of the contract, including the deposit (the old regulation did not include the deposit).

Subsequent payments must be in accordance with the construction progress but must not exceed 70% of the contract value before the handover of the house, construction project, or the floor area within the construction project. If the seller is an organization with foreign investment capital, the payment must not exceed 50% of the contract value. If the buyer or leaseholder has not yet been granted a land ownership certificate, no more than 95% of the contract value may be collected. The remaining value will be paid when the buyer is granted the land ownership certificate.

A deposit is the first step in the buying and selling process, made before the contract is signed. Previously, before regulations on real estate deposits were in place, the deposit situation in the market was inconsistent and posed several risks. Many developers accepted large deposits and reservation agreements. Some projects even offered housing units under construction but still solicited deposits from customers to raise additional capital.

In reality, many housing projects have collected deposits and installment payments from customers through brokerage firms or directly from the developers. However, the developers then either failed to implement the project or started it halfway and then stopped, leaving homebuyers waiting in vain.

Regulations on real estate purchase and sale deposits aim to protect the rights of homebuyers, preventing the collection of excessively large deposits that could lead to fraudulent activities and cause losses to buyers. These regulations also aim to more tightly control the implementation of real estate projects to limit the practice of developers with weak financial capacity engaging in practices like "starting from scratch" or "hoarding land and waiting for the right time."

From the perspective of the developers, many real estate businesses are feeling uneasy because, in reality, for many years now, most have been using their own money to finance their investments. They raise capital from homebuyers to invest... which is why many customers have paid 95% of the purchase price but don't know when they will receive their property documents...

Or worse, the developer faces difficulties, and customers don't know when they'll receive their homes! There are even cases where developers raise capital without requiring a deposit, with the "guarantee" of a bank. This means that both the customer and the real estate developer are involved in the investment, sharing the profits and losses, but the customer always ends up bearing the brunt of the losses!

To gradually build a healthy real estate market, in addition to existing regulations, there is a need for more constraints and sanctions that are appropriate to the reality of deposit and capital mobilization transactions, in order to both protect the legitimate rights of customers and weed out unscrupulous investors.

DONG GIA

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/bao-ve-quyen-loi-khach-hang-post749500.html