On the afternoon of October 29, Ms. Le Thi Loan and her husband were present at the department of receiving and returning results of documents (People's Committee of District 12) to sign documents according to the instructions of the service broker, in order to submit the application for converting agricultural land in Thanh Loc ward, District 12.
According to Ms. Loan, her family's agricultural land has an area of 100 square meters. When the city officially announced the new land price list applicable from October 31, she and her husband rushed to complete the procedures to convert this land lot before October 31, in order to avoid the tax rate imposed according to the new land price list.
"Applications submitted before October 31 will be subject to the tax rate according to the old land price list, so I have to ask a service broker to help me submit the application quickly, otherwise I won't be able to do it myself. Today, my husband and I will sign the documents so that the service provider can submit them in time. Hopefully, if we submit the application today, we won't be subject to the tax rate according to the new land price list," Ms. Loan shared.
Posing as a resident in need of urgently converting 300 square meters of agricultural land in Trung My Tay Ward, District 12 to residential land before October 31, we were offered 10 million VND by Ms. Nguyen Thi Hang, a service broker, for the dossier to convert the land use purpose from agricultural to residential.
"Broker" Hang is regularly present at the department receiving and returning results of documents (People's Committee of District 12), ready to receive documents to convert agricultural land to residential land quickly, depending on the landowner's willingness to pay.
According to our observations, "broker" Hang can approach the staff of the department receiving and returning application results at any time to submit the application to the landowner, without having to take out a serial number like other people.
When she learned that our land conversion file did not have a drawing or confirmation from the local government and that we would only submit it on October 30, broker Hang said it could not be done before October 31. If we had contacted her 2 days before, we would have been able to do it on time.
We raised the issue, willing to pay an additional service fee to submit the application before October 31 to avoid paying high taxes according to the new land price list, "broker" Hang said to contact us again to see if it is possible.
Continuing to move to the department of receiving and returning results of documents (Hoc Mon District People's Committee), we also noted that many people were "sprinting" to submit documents to convert agricultural land to residential land.
Here we met Ms. Phan Thi Hong, a broker who specializes in converting agricultural land into residential land in Hoc Mon district. Similar to broker Hang, Ms. Hong also said that she could not complete the documents for us in time, and that we had to contact her a few days in advance to be able to complete the conversion.
Ms. Hong advised us to wait until November to see if there are new regulations on tax and fee reductions for people who want to convert to build houses for living, then she will accept the job: "300 square meters of land in Tan Xuan street area, Trung Chanh commune, Hoc Mon district, if applied according to the new land price list, the tax will be up to 6 billion VND, so I advise you to wait until after November to see what the situation is, then submit your application."
According to the reporter of Lao Dong Newspaper, since Ho Chi Minh City officially issued the new land price list, at the reception and result delivery department in District 12, Binh Tan, Binh Chanh and Hoc Mon districts in recent days, many people have come to do the procedures to convert agricultural land to residential land.
If people do it themselves, they will spend a lot of time traveling, waiting for a long time or the documents will not be complete according to regulations to change the land use purpose before October 31, 2024. Therefore, to have the documents quickly approved and apply the tax and fee rates according to the old land price list, many people are willing to pay tens of millions of dong to "brokers" for services.
*Character names have been changed
