Real estate business is defined as investing capital to carry out construction activities, buying, receiving transfer for sale, transfer; lease, sublease, lease purchase of real estate; providing real estate brokerage services; real estate trading floor services; real estate consulting or real estate management for profit.
1. Principles of real estate project transfer
According to Article 48 of the 2014 Law on Real Estate Business, the project owner is allowed to transfer the entire or a part of the project to another investor to continue investment and business.
The transfer of the entire or a part of the real estate project must ensure the following requirements:
– Not change the project objectives;
– Not change the content of the project;
– Ensure the rights and interests of customers and related parties.
The transfer of the entire or a part of the real estate project must be approved by the competent state agency in writing. The transferee is granted a Certificate of land use right, ownership of houses and other assets attached to land or registered changes in the certificate issued to the transferor in accordance with land law regulations.
The transferee of the entire or a part of the real estate project does not have to redo the project dossier, construction planning and construction permit of the project if there is no change in the content approved by the investment policy decision, investment decision of the project.

2. Conditions for transferring real estate projects
The conditions for transferring real estate projects are stipulated in Article 49 of the 2014 Law on Real Estate Business, specifically:
– The real estate project to be transferred must meet the following conditions:
+ The project has been approved by a competent state agency, has a detailed plan of 1/500 or an approved overall plan;
+ The project or transferred part has completed compensation and site clearance. For the case of transferring the entire infrastructure construction investment project, the corresponding technical infrastructure works must be completed according to the progress recorded in the approved project;
+ The project has no disputes over land use rights, is not secured for enforcement of judgments or for enforcement of administrative decisions of competent state agencies;
+ There is no decision to revoke the project, revoke land of competent state agencies; in case of violation during the project implementation process, the investor must comply with the penalty decision.
– The transferor has a certificate of land use rights for the entire or a part of the transferred project.
– The transferee of the entire or a part of the real estate project must be a real estate business, have sufficient financial capacity and commit to continue to implement investment construction and business in accordance with legal regulations, ensuring progress and content of the project.
3. Procedures for transferring real estate projects
The procedures for transferring the entire or a part of real estate projects are as follows:
– The investor sends a dossier requesting to transfer the entire or a part of the project to the provincial People’s Committee where the project is located or an authorized agency by the provincial People’s Committee.
– Within 30 days from the date of receiving a complete and valid dossier, the provincial People’s Committee is responsible for issuing a decision to permit transfer. In case there are not enough conditions to permit transfer, it must notify in writing to the investor.
In case the project is decided by the Prime Minister to invest, within 45 days from the date of receiving a complete and valid dossier, the provincial People’s Committee is responsible for collecting opinions from specialized management agencies and Ministry of Construction to report to Prime Minister for decision.
– Within 30 days from the date of having a decision to permit transfer of real estate projects by competent state agencies, all parties must complete signing transfer contracts and complete handover of projects.
If the investor who receives the transfer of real estate projects is a foreign-invested enterprise, after receiving the decision to permit the transfer of the project from the competent state agency, the transferor must complete procedures to return the land to the State; the competent state agency shall decide to allocate or lease land to the transferee within 30 days from the date of receiving a complete and valid dossier.