Why does Thanh Oai district (Hanoi) continue to stop land auctions and return money?

Thanh Oai District People's Committee has just sent a document to the District Land Fund Development Center and two auction companies regarding the temporary suspension of land use rights auctions for 114 land plots in the Dam area, Muc Xa village, Cao Duong commune.

According to the plan, Thanh Oai district will auction these 114 plots of land in two sessions (57 plots of land each session). Of which, the first 57 lots will be auctioned on September 8.

Thanh Oai District People's Committee said that it will announce the re-organization of the auction after reviewing the legality and conditions, ensuring compliance with legal regulations.

Immediately afterwards, Vietnam Auction Joint Stock Company also announced the temporary suspension of the auction of the right to use 57 land plots in the Dam area, Muc Xa village, Cao Duong commune, Thanh Oai district (phase 1).

Customers who have registered to participate in the auction will have their application fee refunded within 2 working days from the date of notification.

Regarding these 57 plots of land, previously (August 7), the announcement of Truong Son Joint Stock Auction Company said that the auction was temporarily suspended so that the People's Committee of Thanh Oai district could re-determine the starting price for the auction of land use rights for 114 plots of land in Cao Duong commune according to the decision of the Hanoi People's Committee.

However, on August 16, Vietnam Auction Joint Stock Company announced to reorganize this auction, scheduled for the morning of September 8.

Specifically, the land plots have an area ranging from 74.63-134.69m2, the starting price increased from 8.097 million VND/m2 to 8.8 million VND/m2 (an increase of 703,000 VND). The form of auction for each land plot is by direct secret ballot once.

With the new starting price, customers participating in the land auction must pay a deposit of 20%, equivalent to 131.3-237 million VND, depending on the different plots.

Thus, after being temporarily suspended and then announced to resume the auction by raising the starting price by 703,000 VND/m2, the auction of 57 land plots has now been temporarily suspended again.

On August 10, Thanh Oai district organized an auction of 68 land lots in Ngo Ba area, Thanh Than village, Thanh Cao commune. The auction attracted more than 4,000 applications with about 1,500 participants.

This auction caused a stir among real estate investors and the public when the winning price was 7-8 times higher than the starting price. From the starting price of 8.6-12.5 million VND/m2, the highest winning price exceeded 100 million VND/m2.

Then, on August 19, the auction of 19 plots of land in Hoai Duc district had about 500 people attending overnight. The highest winning lot price was pushed up to more than 133 million VND/m2, more than 18 times the starting price.

The winning price in Thanh Oai as well as Hoai Duc is evaluated by many experts and investors to be much higher than the actual value on the market.

Faced with the above situation, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested relevant agencies to rectify and strictly handle violations in land use rights auctions.

Immediately after the directive, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment established a team to inspect the auction of land use rights in Thanh Oai and Hoai Duc districts.

While waiting for the Ministry's inspection team to verify related issues, Hoai Duc district announced the postponement of two auctions of 52 land plots in Tien Yen commune.

Similarly, Ha Dong district has also postponed and has not yet determined the date to reopen the auction of 27 land plots in Phu Luong, Yen Nghia and Duong Noi wards.