Handover is the moment you legally accept the apartment from the developer. Check the acceptance record, the meters, and every surface being handed to you. What you inspect depends on how finished it arrives.
Most checklists written for this moment assume every apartment arrives the same way. In Hanoi they do not, and that one difference decides half of what you should be looking at.
The paperwork outranks the paint
The acceptance record is the document that matters. Once you sign a clean one, every defect becomes something you are asking the developer to fix as a favor rather than something they still owe you. So defects go on the record itself, in writing, on the day — not into a message sent afterwards.
Two other pieces of paper belong to the same hour:
- The 2% maintenance fund — 2% of the apartment value excluding VAT, required by Article 152 of the Law on Housing 27/2023. It funds the building’s long-term maintenance. Ask for the receipt and keep it with your contract.
- Meter readings — photograph the electricity and water meters before you leave. That photograph is the only proof of where your consumption starts, and it settles the first bill dispute before it happens.
What you check in every building
This part really is the same everywhere:
- Keys, fobs and access cards counted against what the contract promises.
- Every tap run and every drain watched until it clears.
- Every window and balcony door opened, closed and locked.
- Sockets tested, and the air conditioning run in both cooling and heating.
- The floor walked slowly, listening for hollow tiles, and the corners of ceilings and walls photographed.
None of that takes technical skill. It takes an hour, and someone physically present who is willing to be unpopular for that hour.
What changes: how finished the apartment arrives
Here is where a generic checklist stops being useful. Three buildings on our handover list are handed over three different ways, and each one moves the inspection somewhere else.
Fully finished. Lumière Evergreen arrives with herringbone timber flooring, natural stone to the kitchen and bathrooms, and built-in joinery with the kitchen and bathroom equipment already installed. Nothing is left to build, so the apartment can go to market without a fit-out at all.
That moves the risk from missing work to damaged work. Stone and timber travel through a building site before you see them, and joinery is fitted by different trades on different days. Check the stone and timber for chips, lippage and gaps at the edges. Open and close every door and drawer in the built-in joinery and watch how it aligns when it shuts. Run every installed appliance, tap and shower under power and water, in front of the person handing over.
Basic fit-out. The Sola Park is reported to arrive with ceilings, walls, timber flooring, living-room air conditioning, sanitary ware and lighting. That level is what selling agents describe rather than what MIK Group has published, so your contract is the document that settles it.
At that level the inspection has two jobs instead of one. Check the delivered work for damage: flooring for gaps and lippage, walls and ceilings for cracking at the joints, sanitary ware for seals and drainage, the living-room air conditioner run under power until it cycles. Then check what is absent against your contract, line by line. An item you assumed was included is far cheaper to raise before you sign the acceptance than after.
It depends which line you bought. Lumi Hanoi has no single answer. CapitaLand sells the development as three lines, Lumi Elite, Lumi Prestige and Lumi Signature, and they differ in finish. What one owner receives is not what the owner two towers over receives, so the project name tells you nothing here and the line written in your contract tells you everything.
So the first question is not what do I inspect. It is what am I being handed. Answer that from your contract, then build the list.
Your date comes from your tower, not from the project
A phased development does not hand over on one day, and the date in circulation is usually the project’s rather than yours.
Lumi Hanoi runs to nine towers built in phases, and CapitaLand does not publish a handover month on its own project site. MIK Group publishes none for The Sola Park either, and that phase is five towers that do not complete together. Masterise Homes handed The Aura over from 15 May 2026, as reported by VTC News, and has published nothing since for The Atmos or The Aqua.
The document that carries your date is the notice naming your tower. In Hanoi a date moving by a quarter is ordinary rather than alarming, which is not a reason to ignore it. It is a reason not to book a flight, or promise a tenant a move-in week, against a number you read in a listing.
The bills do not wait for any of it. The 2% maintenance fund under Article 152 of the Law on Housing 27/2023 and the 0.5% registration fee under Decree 10/2022/ND-CP both land at handover, and the building’s service charge starts running whether the apartment is let or empty: building service and utility charges. An apartment sitting empty for four months between collecting keys and signing a tenant is billed for all four, and the full stack is in what it really costs to own and rent out a Hanoi apartment.
If you cannot be there on the day
Most of the owners we work with are not in Vietnam when their building calls. That is workable, and it is the ordinary case rather than a special one — we manage more than 360 apartments across 13 Hanoi buildings, and a large share of them started with someone else standing in the empty unit with a phone camera.
What that person should leave you with is a written report: meters photographed, defects listed on the acceptance record before signing, keys counted, and photographs of every room. Taking handover is one of the days an operating team in Hanoi earns its keep. And if the apartment arrives bare or half-finished, the same visit tells you what a furnishing package has to cover — which is the difference between letting the unit next month and letting it next quarter.
Common questions
Can I refuse to sign at handover?
You can decline to sign a clean acceptance record and instead sign one that lists the defects you found. That is the normal route, and it is stronger than signing and complaining later: once the record is clean, fixing anything becomes a favor you are asking for rather than an obligation the developer still owes.
What is the 2% maintenance fund and who holds it?
It is 2% of the apartment value excluding VAT, required by Article 152 of the Law on Housing 27/2023, and collected around handover. It funds the building's long-term maintenance and is held for the building rather than kept as developer revenue, so ask for the receipt and keep it with your contract.
Does my whole building hand over on the same day?
Not in a phased development. Lumi Hanoi is built in phases across nine towers, and The Sola Park's phase is five towers that do not complete together. The notice naming your own tower is the date to plan against, not the month quoted for the project.
Can someone take handover for me if I live abroad?
Yes, with written authorization. We take handover on behalf of owners in the buildings we manage: meters photographed, defects listed on the record itself, keys and access cards counted, then a written report with photographs so you see what you signed for.
