Procedure to sell an apartment in hanoi

Hi Marlan,

I would respond you as below:

1. Assumptions:

(i) You (as a foreigner) are the legal owner of the department. This is important because if you are not the legal owner from the begining, then the transfer will not be allowed. Foreigners are only allowed to buy a department in Vietnam subject to certain conditions, for examples: they were allowed to enter into Vietnam, the department belongs to the proper commercial house delevelopement project, etc. Normally, the ownership can be proved via the proper sale and purchase agreement executed with housing project developer and/or Ownership Certificate/Ping Book issued by the State authorities).

(ii) You had initially purchased the department for living. This is also important because if you had purchased the department for other purposes as real estate investment activities in Vietnam, other regulations on foreign investment procedure in this field would apply.

2. Selling procedure: Under the Vietnamese law, before the time limit of the homeownership (i.e. maximum time limit is 50 years from the issuance of the Ownership Certificate/Ping Book which is stated in such Certificate and can be extended) expires, the owner is entitled to gift or sell their house(s) to entities eligible for the homeownership in Vietnam.

The key step in the whole procedure is to notarize the department selling agreement at the licensed notary office. After the notarization of the agreement, the buyer is deemed to be the owner of the department and the subsequent steps for obtaining the Ownership Certificate/Ping Book for the buyer is basically an administrative procedure. Accordingly, once parties reach a verbal agreement, you should arrange with a notary office for making and notarizing the written agreement. Each notary office may have different requirements on documentations from parties for review for their notarization purpose.

Commercically, it also means that you as the seller should require full payment of the price latest at the notarization date. Practically, subject to parties' agreement, on the buy side, the buyer may request keeping a certain amount (e.g. 5%) and pay such remaining amount upon the issuance of the Ownership Certificate/Ping Book to recognize them as the owner. To clarify this, there is always a time difference in between the notarization of the agreement and application for the issuance of the Ownership Certificate/Ping Book. You as seller may need to consider this flexibly.

Notably, the transfer price must be in VND. Under Vietnamese laws, all transactions within Vietnam territory must be paid in VND.

3. Remitting money abroad:

(i) Firstly, you must open a VND bank account at a licensed bank in Vietnam in order to receive the payment in VND from the buyer.

(ii) After receiving the money into account, you would request the bank to convert the VND into your currency (e.g. USD). Under the Vietnamese laws, foreigners who have incomes from VND from sale/purchase of houses in Vietnam are allowed to contact the bank for purchasing foreign currency for remitting abroad.

Hope the response is helpful to you.

BR