HÀ NỘI — The revised Law on Real Estate Trading was passed on Tuesday with 94.1 per cent of the vote and is expected to come into force on January 1, 2025.

The law will allow Vietnamese nationals "who live abroad and have entry permits to the country" to do business in real estate. In other words, they will be entitled to the right to invest in buildings for sale, lease, or lease-purchase.

They will also have the right to invest in the technical facilities of a real estate project, and to transfer, lease, or re-lease the land use right associated with the facilities later.

Meanwhile, people of Vietnamese origin but not Vietnamese nationality are allowed to engage in real estate activities to the extent defined by the current legal framework.

In this way, their rights go so far as to "invest in buildings for sale, for lease, or lease-purchase via a real estate project, and their activities must be carried out in line with the law on land".

They are also allowed to invest in the technical facilities of a real estate project and to transfer, lease, or re-lease the land use right associated with the facilities later. Their activities must be carried out in accordance with the law on land.

In a move to safeguard real estate buyers, the law stipulates that real estate investors are not allowed to collect an amount of money from buyers as a deposit, which exceeds 5 per cent of their building's selling price or lease-purchase price.

The deposit agreement must explicitly outline crucial information, including the selling price or lease-purchase price, and the land area that the building covers.

The Standing Committee of the National Assembly said the current legal framework does not have any provision for real estate deposit yet. The threshold of 5 per cent was set in the law to safeguard buyers, who are normally exposed to higher risk in a real estate transaction.

Regarding the sale of real estate on paper, the law stipulates that sellers will not collect more than 95 per cent of the contract value from buyers until the latter is granted the land use right certificate associated with the building.

In other words, the remaining value of the contract will not be paid to the sellers unless a governing body issues the land use right certificate to the buyers.

The law also regulates payments for lease-purchase transactions. Under the law, buyers are only required to pay 50 per cent of the building's price until the building is officially handed over to them.

The remaining 50 per cent will be transformed into monthly instalments, which the buyers will pay to the sellers over an agreed period of time. — VNS