Sharing with Lao Dong reporter, Mr. Le Hoang Chau - Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) expressed that the Association welcomes the Ministry of Finance for drafting amendments and supplements to a number of articles of Decree 103/2024/ND-CP on land use fees and land rents.
According to Mr. Chau, one of the biggest problems at present is the application of the land price list to calculate land use fees for households and individuals when converting land use purposes to residential land, recognizing residential land use rights or extending land use. " applying 100% of land prices in the land price list without distinguishing between the limit or exceeding the residential land limit makes the land use fee payable too high, unreasonable, exceeding the financial capacity of the people" - Mr. Chau said.
HoREA has proposed two options, including choosing the option of building a Government Resolution in the direction of regulating lower fees for areas within residential land limits and higher for areas exceeding the limits. Accordingly, "the land price after changing the land use purpose for the land area within the limit is calculated at 20% of the land price in the land price list; and for the area exceeding the limit, it is calculated at 30% of the land price in the land price list".
Mr. Chau emphasized, "if the 30% and 50% rates as proposed by the Ministry of Finance continue to be applied, it will still be too high, not suitable for the financial capacity of the people, especially in the context that the adjusted land price list in many localities has increased many times compared to the period of 2020-2024".
He also cited: "There are cases where a 400 m2 plot of land in Vinh city must pay up to 4.5 billion VND; a 208 m2 plot in Hoc Mon district must pay 1.7 billion VND; or a 400 m2 plot in District 7 must pay up to 14 billion VND".
In addition, the Association also proposed amending the 2024 Land Law in the direction of removing regulations on land use fees that must be paid additionally during the period not including land use fees and land rents. "This amount is unreasonable because it has stipulated new or heavier legal responsibilities, applying the effect back to before for cases of land allocation and land lease from 30 years ago. That is not suitable" - Mr. Chau analyzed.
Regarding annual land rent, HoREA proposed to adjust the percentage for calculating land rental prices. Mr. Chau said: The regulation of a percentage of 0.25% to 3% has pushed the cost of land rental too high. Typically, R Company rents a warehouse of 11,000 m2 at Khanh Hoi Port and must pay VND 20.999 billion in 2025, 6.36 times higher than in 2022. This is a burden that causes logistics costs to increase, reducing the competitiveness of the economy".
Therefore, the Association proposes to keep the regulation in the draft (3) but amends in the direction of only regulating a percentage from 0.25% to 1.5%, instead of 3%. "This will help localities proactively build land rental rates that are more suitable to reality" - Mr. Chau affirmed.
In addition, HoREA also commented on many other technical points in the draft, such as amending and supplementing Article 8 to ensure that households and individuals with legal land use rights due to inheritance or transfer are allowed to calculate land fees before changing land use purposes, instead of the current zero regulation.
According to Mr. Chau, this regulation aims to "guarantee the legitimate and legal rights and interests of land users, while not causing a loss of state budget revenue".
Another important proposal is to add regulations on " Handling compensation, support and resettlement funds". Mr. Chau stated: "In case the investor has land use rights due to agreement to receive the transfer of rights, the amount paid must be included in the investment cost of the project, but not exceeding the amount corresponding to land use fees and land rents determined according to the land price list".
