Foreigners have rights to own buildings, New Law in 2010

The Cambodia’ National Assembly on April 5 approved the foreign ownership law, paying the way for the non –Cambodians to have rights to buy and own the buildings as their property above the ground floor in the country.
“This new law will contribute to speed up economic development and growth as well as boost the kingdom’s s real estate market and attract more foreign investors to make business here, Ngin Sophon, chairwoman of the commission of the public work, telecommunication, post office, industry, mine, energy, and trade, urbanization, and construction of the national assembly told the floor of the national assembly.
“This law with 4 chapters and 18 articles also will attract foreigners to live here and exchange more business transaction, she noted.
“Foreigners will only be able to buy and own property at least one floor above the land and they can own the building sitting atop the land, but you can't own the land,” the law said.
H.E Im Chhun Lim, minister of the land management, urbanization, and construction who defended the law in front of the parliament said that that the new law will now permit foreigners to own apartments and condos above the ground, or from the first floor up but in the law itself, some other restrictions including the limitation of the foreign ownership of one building is only 49%. Foreigners owned property of co-buildings but not one hundred percent. Cambodians is largest part as ownerships. He stresses that the adoption of the law could help attract foreign buyers and push up the Cambodia’s economic growth.
‘This law will promote the investment sector by encouraging the construction of luxurious buildings, condos, apartments and skyscrapers in the country with high prices,’ he said, adding that it also will provide the benefits to social development and household locations as well as integration of domestic capital in region and the world. Anyway, this law will end the situation of the foreigners used Khmer people to buy houses that caused o have complicated factors in the past years,” he explained.
The law was approved by 85 of 96 present lawmakers as parliament has total 123 seats. The law also needs to be passed by the Senate and then King Norodom Sihamoni has to sign for final approval before it becomes law and in effective law. Developers who want to sell apartments to foreigners must register their buildings at the ministry of land management, urbanization and construction first to be eligible for the co-ownership, according to the law adopted.
In a separate case, Im Chhun Lim, minister of the land management, urbanization and construction of Cambodia said that market of the real estate including construction of apartments and condos, and land price has been recovering subsequently after this field downed and affected by the financial crisis in late 2008.
“The recovering of the construction field and real estate market especially the building construction which used the foreign capital is starting their process when the investors’ countries’ have begun easing from the financial crisis,” he said.
He highlighted that the construction field in Cambodia started booming in 2004-2005 with high cost of buildings and the investment on that field reached to 857 million US dollar at that time. This real estate sector spurred to its peak in 2007, with increasing three times if comparing with 2005 equaling about 3.211 million US dollar.
“The investment on the construction and land markets dropped in 2008-2009 and at that time, the foreign direct investments on the real estate and construction decreased with remarkable points. At that time, the investment projects of building the condos and apartment had processed as usual but the market of the real estate stood still,” he noted.
The latest situation of the construction and real estate sector in Cambodia, if we look at the construction site, the number of the construction workers decreased its number, and there were a few construction site paused temporarily for their construction projects because the financial crisis affected to them. “At the same time, we noted that some construction investors asked to transform their project from big to small one and the projects that used the capital from outside countries. Even though we also received the petition subsequently to ask for permission to build new construction projects such as constructions of the factory, hotels, office building, and luxurious households,” he said. ###