Favoured owners, neglected tenants : Privatisation of state owned housing in Hanoi

This paper presents selected findings from the project ‘Privatisation of public housingin Hanoi, the impacts on housing quality and social equality’ which was financed by the SwedishInternational Development Authority (SIDA). The project analyses the consequences of privatisationon the housing conditions of those tenants and owners who live in privatised and partly privatisedmulti-family apartment buildings. This paper focuses on the consequences of privatisation on thehousing and living conditions of tenants compared to those of owners, and presents findings. Thepaper concludes that privatisation actually helps to strengthen the existing inequity betweendifferent social groups, in the sense that the privatisation policy supports senior governmentofficials, many of whom are well situated both financially and socially, and ignores poor and lowincomehouseholds. Privatisation also contributes to enhancing the inequality between better-offhousing areas and poorer ones. Mixed ownership, and the lack of regulations about the duties andrights of owners and tenants after privatisation, also lead to serious degradation of common areas inall residential blocks