Vietnam to issue new expatriate real estate ownership law HANOI - Vietnam's department of housing management under the Ministry of Construction is preparing guidelines for a scheme under which expatriates and overseas Vietnamese working in Vietnam will be allowed to buy houses. Officials of the ministry's International Relations Department said a pilot scheme for selling houses to overseas Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City will go ahead once the guidelines are issued. Although Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has already approved the project, real estate companies have not yet started selling the houses for lack of concrete guidelines, they said. Initially, expatriates and overseas Vietnamese will only be allowed to buy houses in residential areas of Ho Chi Minh City and not villas or street houses because of land management issues, they said. But this was contradicted by Nguyen Minh Dung, director of Ho Chi Minh City' s Department for Housing and Land Management, who said the purchase of apartments in high-rise buildings as well as villas will be allowed. However, initially, only houses built by State-owned and foreign-invested real estate developers will be available for sale, he said. All properties will be located in specially zoned areas with good infrastructure facilities and security, and overseas Vietnamese and expatriates will be allowed to buy any size of house or apartment, including villas, Dung said. "The Department for House and Land Management is ready to grant house ownership and land rental certificates to overseas Vietnamese and expatriates who buy houses in Ho Chi Mimh City." He said the department has also submitted draft guidelines on transfer of house ownership to the ministries of Finance and Construction for consideration. "Initially, overseas Vietnamese and expatriates' requests for transferring or selling houses will be considered on an individual basis," added he. Nguyen Quoc Hung, deputy director of Phu My Hung Corp., said many potential buyers have been discouraged by the lack of clear regulations on purchasing property. Another common query from prospective buyers is about Decree No. 60/CP which stipulates that foreigners must sell houses within 90 days if they leave Vietnam permanently or go to work in another country, Hung said. Vietnam News Agency - March 8, 2000.