Real estate with "suspended" land use fees: Amending regulations, facilitating the issuance of pink books

Thousands of houses in Ho Chi Minh City are slow to issue Land Use Right Certificates (pink books) because land use fees have not been calculated. This has made people anxious and worried for decades.

Residential Area 13C Project, Binh Hung Commune, stuck in land valuation stage for enterprises to fulfill additional financial obligations

Waiting for land valuation

In August, the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Ho Chi Minh City continued to publicly announce dozens of land plots that needed to be appraised. Many of these plots were offered more than 20 times but still had not found an appraiser. The longest was the land plot in the 13C Residential Area project in Binh Hung Commune, Ho Chi Minh City, invested by Tan Binh Construction Investment Joint Stock Company (Tan Binh Company), which had been posted 29 times to find an appraiser. The time of the appraisal was April 2013.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Dung, Legal Director of Tan Binh Company, the 13C Residential Area project was allocated land by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee in 2002 to build and trade urban technical infrastructure. Based on the land allocation decision, the company implemented the project and fulfilled its financial obligations in 2008. In 2013, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee issued a decision to adjust and supplement the decision according to the actual situation. Accordingly, the company still owed land use fees for the increased area of ​​more than 4,800m2. Previously, the company signed a contract with a valuation unit to establish a certificate to determine additional financial obligations. However, after many revisions to the certificate, it was still not achieved, so the valuation unit refused to continue. On the other hand, during the process of completing the dossier according to the instructions, the 2013 Land Law took effect, at this time the responsibility for organizing land valuation belonged to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment before.

“The company has sent many documents to the Department of Agriculture and Environment regarding the determination of additional finance. However, there is no consulting unit to appraise the price according to regulations. Because the land price has not been determined, the company has not been able to fulfill its additional financial obligations, so the 99 plots of land that the company has transferred to people for decades have not yet been granted pink books,” said Mr. Dung.

Similarly, the land at the Hoa Sen apartment project at 262/20 Lac Long Quan Street, Binh Thoi Ward has also posted information that it needs to be appraised for the 23rd time. According to the announcement, the selection of an appraisal unit is the basis for Saigon Trading Corporation - One Member Limited Liability Company to fulfill additional financial obligations to the state when changing planning and architectural criteria. The appraisal time is from June 2010.

Regarding the delay in land valuation to determine financial obligations, at a recent workshop, the leader of Novaland Group shared that the group has 13 projects that have been allocated land for nearly 10 years now, but up to now, there has been no notice of land use fees from the tax authority. When land use fees have not been paid, many customers who have purchased houses for a long time have not yet been granted pink books.

Proposal to apply land price adjustment coefficient 2025

Speaking to SGGP reporters, Mr. Dao Quang Duong, Acting Head of the Land Economics Department, Department of Agriculture and Environment of Ho Chi Minh City, said that most cases of land allocation, land lease, and permission to change land use purpose before July 1, 2014 were stuck in the land valuation stage. The reason was that during this period, collecting information to determine land prices encountered many difficulties, and data was still limited, so it was almost impossible to implement. Specifically, during this period, there were 76 cases of annual land lease and 84 cases of land allocation and change of land use purpose to implement additional finance that were stuck.

According to Mr. Dao Quang Duong, when Decree 71/2024 regulating land prices took effect, it provided guidance on determining specific land prices, contributing to removing obstacles in price appraisal to determine financial obligations for enterprises. Accordingly, Ho Chi Minh City previously removed obstacles in determining land prices for 76 cases of land lease and 52 cases of land allocation and land use purpose change. After that, Ho Chi Minh City issued 27,000 pink books to home and land buyers. At the same time, from the beginning of 2025 to now, the Department of Agriculture and Environment has submitted 9 land price appraisal dossiers with a revenue of about 52,000 billion VND and it is expected that tens of thousands of apartments will continue to be granted pink books. Since the 2024 Land Law took effect, the work of determining land prices has been removed, so the dossiers for determining specific land prices have been shortened by about 3 months compared to before.

In addition to the advantages, there are still some cases where land prices cannot be determined because Decree 71/2024 has not clearly defined them. Specifically, Article 63 of Decree 102/2024 stipulates the method of land valuation for the cases specified in Point b, Clause 2, Article 257 of the Land Law. In Article 7, Decree 71 stipulates that land prices are calculated by multiplying the land price list at the time of land handover by the land price adjustment coefficient at the time of land handover. However, before July 1, 2014, the land price adjustment coefficient was not specified. Therefore, on June 19, the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City sent a document to Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, proposing to amend and supplement Decree No. 71/2024 in the direction that for cases specified in Article 63 of Decree No. 102/2024 that must be determined by the land price adjustment coefficient method, the land price list at the time of issuance of the decision on land allocation, land lease, and land use purpose conversion shall be applied multiplied by the land price adjustment coefficient issued by the provincial People's Committee in 2015. Allowing the application of the 2015 land price adjustment coefficient also ensures consistency with market prices and harmonizes the interests between the state and investors.

According to the leader of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Ho Chi Minh City, in addition to proposing amendments and supplements to Decree 71, the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has also issued Decision 72/2025 on the process of circulating dossiers to determine financial obligations for land in Ho Chi Minh City. According to regulations, if at the time of bidding, no contractor participates in land valuation, the time limit will be extended once. After the extension, if no contractor is selected, the Department of Agriculture and Environment will assign the task to a qualified public service unit to provide consultancy on land valuation.

THANH HIEN

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/bat-dong-san-bi-treo-tien-su-dung-dat-sua-quy-dinh-tao-thuan-loi-de-cap-so-hong-post810008.html