Mr. and Mrs. Vo Quang Trong (Dong Thap province) are both retired teachers. Currently, the couple resides in the locality, with a total monthly pension of 22 million VND, have not registered any houses and land and have never received housing support in any form.
Over the past time, Mr. Trong has made a dossier to register to buy social housing. The dossier has full documents: confirmation from the school where he used to work about being a retired civil servant, a decision to receive a monthly pension and confirmation from the Land Registration Office about not being in the name of land and houses.
However, when submitting the application, the Department of Construction did not accept it, with the reason that Mr. Trong is a retired civil servant, so he is not eligible for social housing policy, and at the same time requested him to be considered as a freelancer, without a labor contract.
Answering the above question, the Department of Housing and Real Estate Market Management (Ministry of Construction) said: The Housing Law of 2023 has specifically stipulated the subjects entitled to housing support policies.
In which, low-income people in urban areas are one of the subjects considered for buying and renting out social housing if they meet the conditions for housing and income according to regulations.
According to the decrees guiding the implementation of the Housing Law, the condition of "not having a house" is determined based on the fact that the applicant and the spouse are not named in the certificate of land use rights and house ownership in the locality where the social housing project is located. The confirmation of this content is carried out by the Land Registration Office.
Notably, the new regulation has raised the income ceiling for social housing buyers. Accordingly, in cases where they are married and the average monthly income of both spouses does not exceed 40 million VND, they are still eligible for purchase consideration.
For retirees, pensions are calculated as legal income for consideration of conditions. The income confirmation may be carried out by the Social Insurance agency paying pensions or the commune-level People's Committee where they reside.
The new paper forms also clearly guide: in case the person has retired, it is clearly stated as "low-income person in urban areas (retired)", not classified with freelancers.
Thus, retired officials, civil servants, and public employees can still buy social housing if they fully meet the conditions on income and housing according to current legal regulations.
