Foreigners houses ownership, Vietnamese residing in foreign countries

Nowadays, there are many foreigners currently residing, working in Vietnam, as well as Vietnamese residing in foreign countries who wish to come back to Vietnam. The above subject has the demand to purchase/own houses in Vietnam for stabilisation. Current Vietnam Regulation allows this situation, however individual who wish to purchase/own houses need to satisfy specific conditions:

1. “Foreigner” is an individual who does not possess Vietnamese Nationality, including individuals who possess foreign nationality and individuals who have no nationality.
2. “Vietnamese residing in foreign country” is an individual who has Vietnamese Nationality and Individual who originates from Vietnam is currently residing, working, and living long-term in foreign country.
3. “Individual who originates from Vietnam” is an individual who was born in foreign country, having foreign nationality but with either blood-related father or mother, or both of them, or grandparents, ancestors are Vietnamese.
4. Housing is a construction unit with the purpose of residing and essential living needs of household, individuals. It can be divided into two types:
   1. Individual Houses built on separate land.
   2. Apartment is considered to be a house with more than 2 floors, with many rooms, have the same walking way, stairs, have private ownership parts, same ownership parts and same infrastructure system for households, individuals, organisations.

Relevant Legal documents

1. Law on Land 2013
2. Law on Housing 2014
3. Decision 99/2015/NĐ-CP orient Law on Housing
4. Decision 30/2021/NĐ-CP amend Decision 99/2015/NĐ-CP orient Law on Housing
5. Circular 19/2016/TT-BXD orient the application of Law on Housing and Decision 99/2015/NĐ-CP orient Law on Housing

Housing ownership of Vietnamese residing in foreign country

By law, Vietnamese residing in foreign country can own housing via purchasing, hiring commercial houses of real property company or purchase, receive from, receive instead of, receive inheritance from household, individual; receiving lands transferring rights from housing commercial investment projects that are allow to sell land base to construct housing according to the law;

In other words, Vietnamese residing in foreign countries almost has the same rights of owning housing as Vietnamese residing in Vietnam.

In the change registration application (Certificate of land use rights and ownership of houses and other land-attached assets registration) to record the ownership rights, Vietnamese residing in foreign country need to provide certificate proving their purchasing rights:

1. If individuals have Vietnamese passport, then the passport must still be valid with stamp, certificate from Vietnam Immigration department.
2. If individuals have foreign passport, then the passport must still be valid with stamp, certificate from Vietnam Immigration department and with documents proving that individuals still have Vietnamese nationality or documents proving Vietnamese originality issued by Justique Departments at provinces, city subject to central managements, Vietnam representative offices in foreign countries, Vietnamese Organization in foreign country or other documents as prescribed by law.

Housing ownership of Foreigners.

Foreigners have limited housing rights in Vietnam. There are only two for foreigners to own house in Vietnam:

1. Investing in housing construction projects in Vietnam as prescribed by this Law and relevant regulations (must register for housing construction project – which is almost impossible for foreigner)
2. Purchase, hire purchase, receiving from, receiving inheritance of commercial housing including apartment and private home in housing construction projects, this do not include restricted security areas (Commercial houses are houses that are invested to sell, hire, purchase and hire following commercial mechanism). In other words, foreigners are only allowed to sell/receive from/receive inheritance in commercial housing investment projects and cannot own a normal private house like an individual household.

Foreigners also have a restricted owning timeline, no more than 50 years. Commercial housing projects sell to foreigners must also guarantee total foreigner owner’s houses must not exceed 30% over total rooms in the apartment (in private house, in a geographical areas with population equal to an administrative unit then foreigners only allow to own less than 250 private houses)

In reality, it is complicated for foreigners to own houses in Viet Nam. Foreigners can search for houses in commercial houses projects (cannot purchase resident private houses) and need to make sure the houses are not located in restricted security areas.

The housing ownership registration is also complicated- since competent authorities need to examine, check various facts compared to Vietnamese citizenship.

For Vietnamese citizens residing in foreign countries, from a regulation perspective they almost have the same rights as a normal Vietnamese. However, this situation might change depending on whether Vietnamese citizens residing in other countries still keep Vietnamese nationality certificates (or the paper accuracy, clearance level) the complexity might change.

Therefore, should foreigners and Vietnamese residing in foreign countries want to look for houses, it is recommended that they should consult professional agencies who have experiences in this field for advice, house search as well as application preparation and certificate documents to register for house ownership. Individuals should not search, prepare documents by themselves which is time-consuming and fees that could lead to unwanted results.