People 'accuse' of having to pay 'difference' when buying social housing, what does Hai Phong Department of Construction say?

Ms. Nguyen Huyen reflected that currently, people who are eligible to buy social housing in Hai Phong City cannot buy it at the real value as publicly announced, but must buy it through real estate agents designated by the investor and have to pay an additional "difference" of 100-300 million VND depending on the location.

Ms. Huyen requested that competent authorities take measures to resolve the above situation to ensure people's rights.

Receiving Ms. Huyen's petition, the Hai Phong City Department of Construction said that this agency has received information reflecting that people have difficulty accessing social housing or want to buy the apartment they want, they have to pay a "difference" through brokers, often called "brokers", with the difference up to tens or hundreds of millions of dong.

The process of working with the People's Committees of the districts and some residents' feedback shows that this difference is not a brokerage fee but a cost for services: consulting service contracts at real estate trading floors from 50-120 million VND/apartment and can be higher (depending on location, area...); interior construction contracts about 50 million VND/apartment; air conditioning copper pipe installation contracts about 7-15 million VND/apartment (depending on area...).

Hai Phong City Department of Construction assessed that, with the service consulting agreement, the service consulting agreement between the consulting unit and the buyer is a civil agreement, the state agency does not intervene in this content. However, through the process of checking the consulting contract, with the cost of up to over 100 million VND/contract while the consulting content is very simple and is fully available in legal documents as well as instructions of the Department of Construction, it is possible that the consulting service price is high, not corresponding to the volume of consulting services.

With the interior construction agreement, the value is about 50 million VND including the following items: 2-storey kitchen cabinets, kitchen equipment, kitchen stone, recessed LED lights, plaster ceiling of the apartment is about 70m2. The housing sale contract does not include the above items. Therefore, the Department of Construction of Hai Phong City has a preliminary assessment that the above value is consistent with the general market price.

With the agreement to construct air conditioning lines, the value is from 7-15 million VND; the house purchase contract does not include this item. The Hai Phong City Department of Construction has preliminary assessed that the buyer registering and proactively signing contracts to repair and add equipment before completion to avoid demolition and re-construction is a common occurrence in most apartment projects nationwide.