Public information on social housing buyers to avoid policy exploitation

Concerns about taking advantage of social housing policies, causing the already scarce supply of this segment to go to the wrong target, experts said that this has been resolved in Decree No. 94/2024/ND-CP of the Government detailing a number of articles of the Law on Real Estate Business on the construction and management of information systems and databases on housing and the real estate market.

According to public opinion, in recent times, in many localities, there has been a situation of buying and selling social housing despite existing regulations on beneficiaries and minimum ownership period to be able to transfer to a second owner. There are even social housing projects that have just received documents for sale and have not yet been completed, but brokers are offering them for sale everywhere.

Typically, when launching the NHS Trung Van Social Housing project in Nam Tu Liem district (Hanoi) in 2023, the investor announced that it had discovered 7 cases that were not eligible to buy a house.

These are cases where people already have land use rights certificates, house ownership (red books) in other locations, or houses and land exceeding 10 m2/person, but still participate in the lottery. This reduces the chance of winning the lottery to buy a house for other people with real needs.

The transparency of information on social housing buyers is also a matter of concern to voters in Ha Nam province and a recommendation sent to the National Assembly after the 7th session of the 15th National Assembly.

Specifically, it is proposed to research, build and introduce a general information data system on individuals who have purchased social housing nationwide to facilitate screening and verification. At the same time, it is necessary to connect with the database on housing and land to facilitate verification of the status of individuals when there are requests related to social housing.

Performing the function of state management in this field, the Ministry of Construction said that on July 24, the Government issued Decree No. 94; which stipulates that information and data on individuals who have purchased, rented, or lease-purchased social housing nationwide are included in the national housing database and information and data on individuals who have purchased, rented, or lease-purchased social housing in the locality are included in the local housing database.

This Decree also stipulates information collection forms, reporting entities, and information synthesis to serve the construction and exploitation of data on individuals who are allowed to buy, rent, or lease-purchase social housing in each locality and nationwide.

Thus, the People's Committees of provinces and centrally run cities are responsible for periodically reporting to the Ministry of Construction on information about individuals who are allowed to buy, rent, or hire-purchase social housing in the area every quarter and periodically publishing this list every year to avoid taking advantage of the policy.

The Ministry of Construction is responsible for synthesizing personal information on individuals who have purchased, rented, or leased-purchased social housing nationwide to serve the state management of the construction industry; sharing and connecting with other relevant specialized databases (national database on population and land).

From 2021 to the end of August 2024, the country has launched 619 social housing projects with a scale of about 561,816 units. However, the actual results are that only 79 projects have been completed, equivalent to 40,600 units; 128 projects are under construction and 412 other projects have been approved for investment.

These are modest numbers compared to the Government's target of building 1 million social housing units.