Apartment of Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association had water cut off for 8 months

(NLDO)- Ms. Do Thi Loan said that her apartment in Sunrise City South apartment building has had its water cut off for the past 8 months, greatly affecting her daily life.

The Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association's house had its water cut off for 8 months.

On September 7, reflecting with a reporter of Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper, Ms. Do Thi Loan - Vice President of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, who owns apartment V5-1002 at Sunrise City South Apartment (Tan Hung Ward) - said that her water has been cut off for 245 days, or more than 8 months.

According to Ms. Loan, the incident started on the morning of Tuesday, January 7, 2025, when CBRE Vietnam Co., Ltd. - the building's management and operation unit - suddenly stopped supplying water to her apartment, citing unpaid water bills for the months of October, November, and December 2024 totaling more than VND 1 million, and she also had not paid the water bill for January 2025.

Ms. Loan explained that she had not paid her water bill because she did not accept all the data on water consumption provided by CBRE Vietnam in the monthly service fee notices. According to her, from 2019 until then, the water indicators showed many signs of abnormality, even fraud, so she refused to pay.

Ms. Loan had to have someone bring water in from outside after the water was cut off.

During the water cut, to meet her basic needs, she had to rely on people to manually transport water from outside, which was extremely difficult. Notably, the apartment management board directed the security force to prevent her from bringing water into the apartment, forcing her to buy purified water for daily use.

Ms. Loan had to have someone bring water in from outside after the water was cut off.

Ms. Loan said that she has sent many emails and written responses to CBRE Vietnam, the Management Board, the Apartment Management Board, and petitioned the People's Committee of District 7 (old), the Department of Construction, the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, and the press to reflect on the unreasonable way of calculating and collecting monthly water bills. However, she has not received a satisfactory response so far.

According to Ms. Loan, not only her but also many other residents in the apartment building also reported that the monthly water consumption index of the apartments was too high and unusual. Particularly in apartment V5-1002, from November 2019 to the time she officially spoke out, the average water bill regularly exceeded 190,000 VND/person/month, equivalent to about 12m³/person/month, and in some months it even exceeded 300,000 VND/person/month. Meanwhile, according to statistics in many major cities around the world , the average water consumption only fluctuates from 3 to 5m³/person/month.

Ms. Loan also pointed out the abnormality when the Management Board repeatedly announced confusingly similar water bills, typically the level of 206,080 VND was repeated in the months of February 2020, April 2020, June 2020, July 2020 and January 2021.

"The Management Board has sent technical staff to check the system in my apartment many times and signed the minutes confirming that there is no water leakage. I myself have also monitored the details, the daily water consumption only fluctuates around 130-150 liters, which is an average of about 4-5m³/person/month, equivalent to less than 100,000 VND/person/month according to the current price list of Nha Be Water Supply Joint Stock Company" - Ms. Loan emphasized.

Ms. Loan had to have someone bring water in from outside after the water was cut off.

Ms. Loan had to have someone bring water in from outside after the water was cut off.

There are many abnormalities

Explaining further about her water consumption, Ms. Loan said that she lives alone in an apartment and has a rather frugal lifestyle. She eats a diet of cereals, fresh milk, diet cakes and fruits, so her cooking is very limited; she takes a quick shower once a day, cleans the house only once a week, does laundry a few times a week, has no fish pond, swimming pool, garden, does not raise dogs or cats or organize parties. Therefore, being charged with water consumption of over 12m³ per month is completely unreasonable.

"I have repeatedly sent petitions and requests to Ms. Hang Dang, General Director and Executive Manager of CBRE Vietnam, to respond before January 15, 2025, asking CBRE Vietnam which legal document it is basing on to force and impose me to pay for water while the monthly consumption data of apartment V5-1002, as well as many other apartments at Sunrise City South, is suspected of fraud" - Ms. Loan affirmed.

According to her, this unreasonable situation became more serious when she repeatedly requested the Board of Directors and the Management Board to publicly announce the data on water bill collection and water consumption from nearly 900 sub-meters, as well as the data on water bill payment and water consumption recorded on the main meter of Nha Be Water Supply Joint Stock Company from 2019 to present. However, up to now, the parties have not made it public.

"Only when it is made public will residents know how much more the actual water bill collected is than the bill paid each month, quarter, or year. I estimate that this difference could be up to tens of billions of dong," Ms. Loan analyzed.

She said that to clarify these suspicions, the police need to quickly investigate.

The incident will continue to be informed to readers by the Lao Dong Newspaper.

Ms. Loan had to have someone bring water in from outside after the water was cut off.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/can-ho-cua-pho-chu-tich-hiep-hoi-bat-dong-san-tp-hcm-bi-cat-nuoc-suot-8-thang-196250907110002986.htm