Investors must apply for pink book within 50 days.

The amended Housing Law, which has just been passed by the National Assembly and will take effect on January 1, 2025, details the obligations of investors in commercial housing construction investment projects (Article 39). The provisions of this Law focus on protecting the rights of apartment buyers or renters and facilitating the home ownership process.

An important point in this regulation is the time limit for granting the Certificate of land use rights, house ownership rights and other assets attached to land (pink book) to the buyer or lessee of the house.

Specifically, within 50 days from the date of handover of the house to the buyer or from the date the lessee has fully paid the agreed amount, the investor must submit a request to the competent State agency to issue a pink book to the buyer or lessee of the house.

However, in case the buyer or lessee voluntarily carries out the procedure to request the issuance of a Certificate, the investor will not be responsible for this.

Compared with the current Housing Law 2014, the regulations on the responsibilities of commercial housing investors in the Housing Law recently passed by the National Assembly have not changed.

Recently, disputes between investors and residents have been quite common in many apartment buildings in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. One of the causes is that investors do not fulfill their responsibility to issue pink books to residents.

In a recent report responding to voters' petitions, the Hanoi People's Committee informed about not yet issuing pink books for apartments in apartment projects in Thanh Xuan and Cau Giay districts even though they have been handed over to residents for many years.

Particularly, at Golden West apartment building and The Legacy apartment building, the apartments have not been granted pink books. The reason is that the investor has not completed the project's legal documents and sent them to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to check the legal documents for registration and issuance of certificates at the project according to regulations.

In fact, the situation of residents moving in and fulfilling their financial obligations to the investor but not being granted a pink book also happens quite a lot in apartment buildings in Hanoi.

Speaking to Dan Tri reporter, Mr. Nguyen Van Son - Head of the management board of the Hoang Mai District Police apartment building - said that nearly 400 households have lived in this apartment building since 2014. It was not until January 2019 that this apartment building was accepted by the authorities and put into use according to the provisions of the law.

However, although residents have lived in this apartment building for 9 years now, according to Mr. Son, the households have not yet signed the handover minutes of the apartment, nor received the completion documents in the apartment. All households have not received the pink book.

Explaining why the pink books have not been issued to the above residents, the investor's representative admitted that the issuance of pink books to residents has not been carried out because the project has completed the entire investment work according to the approved planning and the investor still owes financial obligations to the State.

Investors must compensate residents

According to some experts, during the handling process, the State agency is responsible for separating the subjects including home buyers, investors and related State agencies without leaving a "three-way" relationship.

Specifically, if the home buyer has all the documents required by the land law and housing law, he/she must be considered for a certificate to protect his/her legitimate rights.

State agencies must clarify the violations of investors and the responsibilities of relevant departments during the process from the time of project proposal to selling houses to customers; at the same time, direct competent agencies to have specific proposed solutions to thoroughly resolve violations.

The investor must be responsible for correcting violations that affect the constructed works to ensure the issuance of certificates to the buyer. In case of failure to ensure the issuance of certificates to the buyer, the investor must return and compensate the buyer.

Regarding this issue, speaking with Dan Tri reporter, lawyer Tran Tuan Anh - Director of Minh Bach Law Firm - said that according to the provisions of the current Law on Real Estate Business or Housing Law, the investor of an apartment building is responsible for completing the procedures to apply for a pink book for the apartment buyer within 50 days from the date of handover of the apartment, unless the investor and the apartment buyer have another agreement.

"The fact that residents have bought an apartment and moved in for many years without receiving the pink book is clearly a violation of the law by the investor. The level of violation for this act can be up to 1 billion VND," emphasized lawyer Tuan Anh.

Therefore, to avoid buying projects that violate the law, lawyers recommend that apartment buyers should research and consult the law in advance to avoid damage to housing area, construction value and other legal risks. It is also necessary to carefully consider the terms in the Housing Sale Contract regarding the handover of the pink book.

In particular, he emphasized that if the investor is delaying the issuance of the apartment's pink book, affecting their rights, home buyers can request the investor to quickly carry out the procedure or request the competent State agency to handle the above violations.