Apartment buildings in HCM City. The city resolves issues related to pink books for various projects around the city. — VNS Photo Thu Ngân

HCM CITY — In the last three months, HCM City has issued land use rights and property ownership certificates (pink books) for tens of thousands of apartments, its Department of Natural Resources and Environment said.

It was done through the establishment of Task Force 5013 to resolve issues related to pink books for various projects around the city.

Nguyễn Toàn Thắng, director of the department and head of the task force, said the results of three months of work have been submitted to the city government. 

The task force successfully solved problems related to issuing pink books to homebuyers at 41 out of 66 projects comprising 27,575 out of 34,214 apartments, houses, land plots, and office-tel units, 655 parking spaces, one property attached to land, and 15 floors of commercial building construction.

It identified seven main difficulties: legal regulations related to procedures for issuing red books to home buyers in projects; fulfilling developers’ obligations related to social housing at the projects and additional financial obligations; projects under investigation and inspection and court judgments; infrastructure not yet delivered to local management; legal situation under review; and  violations of construction administrative regulations.

At numerous apartment projects, though people having lived there for a long time, pink books have yet to be issued. 

The vov.vn quoted a report made in March 2024 by the HCM City Land Registration Office that said out of over 191,000 residential units including apartments and individual houses, the city had not issued papers for more than 81,300.

Over 17,500 did not meet issuance requirements, developers had not fulfilled additional financial obligations related to 5,300 units, and over 10,000 units were affected due to being classified as new types of real estate.

The city established the task force in October to address the issues and revitalise the property market, which is expected to start recovering in 2025 after a prolonged slump due to COVID-19 and economic recession.

The remaining units are expected to get the pink book by the end of this year.  VNS