Removing procedural bottlenecks to make it easier for customers to access social housing

Registration conditions and legal procedures related to purchasing social housing are now more open than before, but many people still encounter difficulties in completing home purchase procedures.

Registration conditions and legal procedures related to purchasing social housing are now more open than before, but many people still encounter difficulties in completing home purchase procedures.

People still have difficulty accessing social housing. In photo: Phu Tho social housing project in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City

From income verification...

“Social housing” continues to be a “hot” keyword when recently, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a national online conference on removing difficulties and obstacles, promoting the development of social housing. At the conference, the Prime Minister emphasized that the demand for social housing is very large, requiring agencies to put themselves in the position of the people to solve it. Localities must consider this a political task, taking people as the center…

Reality shows that access to social housing for people in need of housing faces many barriers.

Ms. Nguyen Thanh May, who is renting a house in Thu Duc City (HCMC), said that she and her husband left Ha Tinh for HCMC in 2016 and have not been able to own a house despite trying to save up. Currently, her family lives in a cramped 20-square-meter rented room in Thu Duc City. With a total income of 20-25 million VND/month for both husband and wife, buying a commercial house in HCMC is out of reach, so she turned to social housing as a solution.

After a period of research, May and her husband decided to buy a 2-bedroom apartment at the New Lavida social housing project (Di An City, Binh Duong) for 1.5 billion VND, supported with a preferential interest rate (fixed at 6.6%/year) throughout the loan period. However, their journey to owning a home quickly encountered difficulties.

Another bottleneck that makes it difficult for people with real housing needs to access social housing is information about projects on the market. The fact that many people are "tricked" by brokers into paying additional "bribes" of up to hundreds of millions, even billions of VND to be able to draw lots to buy social housing, as reported by Dau Tu Newspaper in its recent issue, shows that management agencies need to closely monitor the publication and transparency of information about social housing projects of investors so that people are not deceived.

According to Decree No. 100/2024/ND-CP, social housing buyers must meet income requirements and not own a home in the project area. Confirming housing status is quite simple, but proving income is a challenge for Ms. May - a freelance worker without a labor contract.

To complete the procedure, she needed to request income confirmation from the local authority where she was permanently residing in Ha Tinh. However, the local authority responded that she was living and working in Ho Chi Minh City and had declared her temporary absence, so the local authority had no basis to sign the confirmation and asked her to contact the local authority where she was residing for confirmation.

When she returned to Ho Chi Minh City, she went to the People's Committee of Hiep Binh Chanh Ward (Thu Duc City) to request income confirmation. However, her application was again rejected on the grounds that the People's Committee of the ward had no basis to confirm her income...

In the end, her family's bank loan application was suspended and the opportunity to own a house was lost when the project was sold out.

In a similar situation, Ms. Le Thi Anh Dung (from Binh Thuan) said that, based on the 2023 Housing Law, freelance workers like her husband and wife with a total income of less than 30 million VND will request confirmation of income conditions at the People's Committee of the commune/ward where they permanently reside.

However, the People's Committee of the ward where Ms. Dung registered her permanent residence did not confirm her income, only confirmed her declaration. When she submitted the confirmation to the investor of the social housing project, the investor did not accept it and requested that her income be confirmed.

Ms. Dung returned to the Ward People's Committee, but the ward still did not confirm, saying that the City had no instructions on this issue.

Go to preferential loan registration procedure

Social housing buyers are supported with preferential loans through the Social Policy Bank, but accessing this preferential capital source is not easy.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh said that her family currently has 4 people, the income of both husband and wife is 29 million VND/month (enough to qualify to register to buy social housing). In June 2024, Ms. Thanh decided to put down money to buy a house in a project in Binh Duong. Binh Duong Department of Construction also approved the application and confirmed that she is eligible to buy social housing.

However, after completing the first payment with available money (300 million VND, equivalent to 20% of the apartment value), she applied for a loan of 1 billion VND at the Social Policy Bank of Di An City, but was only approved for a loan of 600 million VND.

“The credit officer said that with my current income and my husband and I still have to raise two small children, the bank can only lend up to 60% to ensure monthly payment ability,” Ms. Thanh said, adding that although she tried to convince them to borrow an additional 100 million VND to have enough money to pay the next installment, the bank did not accept. Now her family is very confused because they do not know where to get money to pay for the next installments.

Similarly, Mr. Nguyen Van H.'s loan application has not yet been approved by the Social Policy Bank of Di An City, even though he has completed all necessary procedures and made the first payment.

According to Mr. H., he submitted his loan application to the bank in December 2024. According to regulations, the approval period is 15 working days, but by the end of last week, he had not received any notification from the bank, while the next payment period is due in March 2025 (an amount of more than 700 million VND). The investor's customer service department also called to remind him and said that if he did not pay within 60 days, his home purchase contract would be terminated.

“We are all middle-income earners, and our savings are only enough to pay the counterpart fund. If we cannot borrow from the bank, how can we pay the remaining installments on schedule?”, Mr. H. said.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/batdongsan/go-nut-that-thu-tuc-de-khach-hang-de-tiep-can-nha-o-xa-hoi-d251638.html