Individuals not allowed to buy, sell houses over 10 times yearly

The government’s Decree No. 96/2024/NĐ-CP took effect on August 1, 2024, providing detailed regulations on certain provisions of the 2023 Law on Real Estate Business.

Specifically, small-scale individual real estate traders that do not fall under the requirement to establish investment projects are limited to a maximum of 10 transactions per year, with each contract not exceeding VND300 billion. Therefore, the total “quota” for a small-scale real estate business person is not more than VND3,000 billion per year.

In cases where there is only one transaction a year, the value is not counted. The 2023 Law on Real Estate Business stipulates that organizations and individuals engaged in real estate business must establish enterprises (or cooperatives, cooperative unions). However, small-scale real estate business individuals do not need to establish enterprises but must declare and pay taxes.

Similarly, organizations selling or leasing houses, construction works, or a portion of constructed floor area not intended for business purposes are also limited in the number of buying and selling transactions and must also declare and pay taxes. Decree No. 96/2024/NĐ-CP specifies that real estate businesses must publicly disclose complete information according to the provisions of Article 6 of the Law on Real Estate Business before signing contracts for sale, transfer, lease, or lease-purchase of real estate or transfer of real estate projects.

The content of information to be publicly disclosed includes 18 types of project-related information. They are information about real estate projects (such as investment decisions, land allocation or lease decisions, land use purpose change, and detailed planning information); information about future-formed residential buildings and construction works (such as property type, infrastructure design, land use rights documents, confirmation of eligibility to sell residential buildings formed in the future); information about existing residential buildings and construction works; and information about land use rights with existing technical infrastructure in real estate projects.

Real estate businesses must publicly disclose complete and accurate information on the housing and real estate market information system on the company’s website. The disclosed information must be updated (within 5 days) when changes occur.