Real estate projects to be probed

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has ordered inspections on some 60 real estate projects this year over suspicions of land misuse by equitised enterprises.
Villas at the Pandora residential area, located at No 53 on Trieu Vu Street in the capital city’s Thanh Xuan District. (Photo: batdongsan.com.vn)
Villas at the Pandora residential area, located at No 53 on Trieu Vu Street in the capital city’s Thanh Xuan District. (Photo: batdongsan.com.vn)
The projects have showed signs of violations of the Land Law, and their calculation of land use levy and land rental prices is not close to market prices, causing losses to the State budget, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
The Deputy Prime Minister asked the MoF to provide the Government Inspectorate with a list of the properties and their registered land use purpose for the inspections.
He also requested the Ministry of Environment (MONRE) collaborate with concerned ministries and authorities to propose amendments to a regulation on the auction of land use rights in the 2013 Land Law, in accordance with regulations on land acquisition.
Twenty-five of the 60 properties to be inspected are in Hanoi, 13 in HCM City, and the remaining 22 are in seven other localities.
The MoF has listed a number of properties in the capital city that have not paid their full taxes to the State.
The villa project Pandora, located at No 53 on Trieu Vu Street in Thanh Xuan District, has a land use debt of some VND145 billion (US$6.4 million), while the Hong Ha Tower apartment complex, located at No 89 on Thinh Liet Street in Hoang Mai District owes VND175 billion ($7.7 million).
The Orchard Garden apartment and office complex, located at No128 on Hong Ha Street in HCM City, drew public attention last year for carrying out construction without permission and not paying taxes. Its land use value has been identified to be some VND123 billion ($5.4 million) at the moment, an equivalent of VND28.5 billion ($1.3 million) per sqm.
Reports by MONRE show several State-owned properties in Hoan Kiem, Tay Ho, Hai Ba Trung and Hoang Mai districts whose functions were altered have been abandoned in the last five years.
A number of enterprises purposefully omitted the value of their land in prime locations when calculating their enterprise value during equitisation, causing public anger, according to reports.
The Government’s Inspectorate decided in March to conduct a 70-day inspection on a number of issues related to land use in Hanoi. The inspection started on March 7.
Twenty-three other official inspections and six backup ones on altering functions of State-owned lands and properties will be conducted this year in HCM City, central Khanh Hoa Province and coastal Da Nang City.

Other news