Recently, residents of many apartment buildings in Ho Chi Minh City have been upset because the situation of apartments with few residents and many tenants. Mr. Hoang Viet at Goldview apartment building (District 4) said that since the end of the COVID-19 epidemic, tourism has recovered, the Airbnb model has flourished again, so the apartment building is always full of tenants. This causes utilities such as swimming pools, gyms, halls, and elevators to be overloaded at this time, especially on weekends. If before, residents only needed to wait for the elevator for about 5 minutes, now they have to wait for 10 - 15 minutes because groups of tourists continuously come and go.
"Not only me but many residents living here are in the same situation. Not to mention many nights of sleep deprivation because the group of tourists who received their house late and were noisy in the hallway. This makes me and the residents worried about security. Although the apartment is high-end, it is no different from a hotel now, because customers come and go continuously," Mr. Viet said indignantly.
Similarly, at Masteri Millennium apartment building (District 4), residents are quite tired because most of the apartments are for rent by the day, by the hour and disrupt residents' lives. It is worth mentioning that many security and order disorder cases have occurred involving foreign guests staying at award-winning apartments who did not register information with the building management board.
The 2023 Housing Law, effective from August 1, 2024, also stipulates the prohibition of using apartments for non-residential purposes. Article 6 of the 2014 Housing Law also stipulates the prohibition of using apartments for non-residential purposes.
Accordingly, the activity of renting apartments by day and hour is a accommodation activity, similar to the activity of a hotel and requires a license to operate accommodation services. When doing business in this service, it is necessary to issue invoices, declare taxes and pay taxes, ensuring fire prevention and fighting, and security. In addition, visitors must register for temporary residence with local authorities.
However, in reality, these activities are very difficult to control. Therefore, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has recently issued regulations on the management and use of apartment buildings in the city. Accordingly, with the exploitation of apartments for tourist accommodation (short-term lease, by day, hour, Airbnb...) in apartment projects, the city stipulates that only projects built with the purpose of mixed use (tourism households) are allowed to be traded for tourist accommodation rental.
Organizations and individuals providing tourism accommodation services must meet the conditions as well as regulations on the industry and profession of conditional business investment, and at the same time register temporary residence for tenants according to current law.
For apartments, the regulation clearly states that they can only be used for rental purposes, absolutely do not use the apartment for other purposes (short-term tourist accommodation, Airbnb...). The lease must have a signed contract between the homeowner and the lessee.
