Nguyen Tran Nam, chair of the Vietnam Real Estate Association, said about 40-50 officetel projects have been developed in the last three years, especially in HCMC.

However, since the new type of real estate is not mentioned in legal documents, all the parties involved in the real estate market, from management agencies to investors to customers, face problems in licensing, investment and distribution of products.

The biggest problem is in the granting of land use right certificates. Since officetels are not used entirely as accommodation or offices, it is difficult to classify them.

In a 10-storey building, the seven upper floors may be designed for apartments, while the other three floors are officetels. In principle, state management agencies will grant the certificate for long-term land use for the seven upper floors used for accommodation. The other three floors – officetels – have land use rights for 50 years only.

Lawyer Tran Duc Phuong from the HCMC Bar Association confirmed that the 2014 Housing Law and related legal documents do not mention officetels. As a result, investors only have one choice for their apartments – either for accommodations or business offices.

Meanwhile, Doan Hong Nhung from the Law School of the Hanoi National University commented that while the current laws prohibit using apartments for non-accommodation purposes, officetels still exist.

According to Nhung, officetels are set to have ownership duration of 50 years, i.e. the apartments are considered offices where one or two persons can stay overnight as in guesthouses, while they must not be residences.

Therefore, investors only receive certificates for construction works, not houses, and cannot get certificates for permanent residential facilities.

Investors now wonder what kind of purpose should they register officetels for — apartments or offices for lease? And which standards must be followed when building officetels. — the standards for apartments or offices?

Le Dinh Trung, deputy general director of Can Nha Mo Uoc (Dream House), a real estate developer, said buyers always ask about the ownership duration of officetels and want to have certificates for long-term land use rights. However, investors cannot promise to give the certificates to buyers.

Trung has proposed amending the current laws to give officetel owners the same proprietorship rights as apartment owners.

According to Nam, the state should allow investors to use no more than15 percent of a building’s area for officetels.