Using a Home for the Wrong Purpose Can Bring a Fine of Up to 30 Million Dong

Vietnam’s new construction and housing enforcement rules include fines of 20 million to 30 million dong for individual domestic homeowners who use a home for the wrong purpose or fail to create and retain the required housing records.

The penalties appear in Decree 339/2026, which covers administrative violations in construction, technical infrastructure, housing management and development, and real estate business. The rule is prompting questions about what counts as improper use and what homeowners must do to avoid a fine.

Ngô Gia Hoàng, a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Law, said the 2023 Housing Law defines a home as a construction used for living and family or individual activities, while allowing other uses that the law does not prohibit. Apartment owners face a separate restriction: using an apartment for a purpose other than residence is prohibited, except when the unit is rented for residential use. Such conduct can bring a fine of 100 million to 130 million dong under Decree 339.

Hoàng said improper use should be understood as using a home without living in it or using it for another purpose prohibited by law. Examples include operating a business in flammable or explosive materials, or running a service that causes pollution, excessive noise or harm to public order and neighborhood safety without complying with business conditions.

Lawyer Trần Thị Thanh Thảo of the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association said the penalty for improper use is entirely new compared with Decree 16/2022. She said it reinforces homeowners’ responsibility to use property according to its function and maintain related legal records. Required records include ownership documents, design and completion files, and documents relating to sales, leases, repairs and renovations. The record-keeping rule does not apply when apartment-building records are stored by the building’s management board under housing law. The article says organizations face corresponding fines of 40 million to 60 million dong.