A ready-built factory is the fastest route for FDI into production: no waiting for design, construction and acceptance from scratch. But “ready-built” also means you inherit the building’s entire legal and technical past. This article orders the selection criteria in the sequence diligence should actually run — legal first, technical second, commercial last — so you do not sign a lease on a factory that cannot lawfully operate for your sector.
1. Legal criteria: may the building be leased and operated at all
Four documents must be seen with your own eyes: (i) the certificate of ownership of assets attached to land, or documents proving the lessor’s lawful ownership of the factory (plus the lessor’s own land lease decision/sublease with the infrastructure developer still in force); (ii) as-built documentation and construction acceptance minutes; (iii) the fire-protection acceptance document — a mandatory condition for putting the works into use under Law No. 55/2024/QH15 on fire prevention, fighting and rescue and Decree 105/2025/ND-CP; (iv) sector compatibility: the park’s infrastructure project has an admitted sector list, and the park’s environmental file may limit permissible production types (especially sectors with specific wastewater or emissions). If the lessor is a real-estate leasing business, the leasing activity must fall within its registered business lines under the Law on Real Estate Business No. 29/2023/QH15.
2. Technical criteria: do the specifications fit your production line
Measure on site instead of trusting the marketing drawings: floor loading (kg/m2) against your heaviest machine and finished-goods storage; clear height under beams and door heights for loading; column grid and line layout feasibility; floor finish (reinforced concrete, epoxy coating, flatness) if your sector needs a clean environment; power capacity available and upgradeability (the most common bottleneck — ready-built factories ship with standard design capacity, and power-hungry sectors must ask the cost and lead time of a substation upgrade); the existing fire-protection systems (automatic alarm, sprinklers, hydrants) and whether they fit your sector’s fire-hazard group under QCVN 06:2022/BXD; and yards, container access and loading docks.
3. Location and park ecosystem criteria
Distance to ports, airports and border gates along your cargo’s actual transport routes; labour supply around the park (ready-built factories usually sit in operating parks — a hiring advantage over new parks); and in-park support services (bonded warehouses, transport, maintenance). Also check the real state of common infrastructure: whether the park’s wastewater plant still has intake capacity for your sector, the park’s power/water outage history, and the service fee levels currently applied to sitting tenants — these determine true operating cost more than the rent unit price.
4. Commercial criteria in the lease
Term and extension right (tied to your project term and the lessor’s remaining land-lease frame — do not lease beyond it); the rent adjustment cycle clause; deposit and refund conditions; rights to renovate and install equipment and the restoration duty at exit; rights to sublease or assign the contract on restructuring; allocation of major repair costs (structure, roof) — in principle the lessor’s as owner, with use-caused damage on the tenant. Finally, expansion headroom: whether the park still has adjacent units or spare land for phase 2 — fast-growing tenants most often relocate only because they skipped this criterion.
Frequently asked questions
Must assets attached to land be registered for the tenant of a ready-built factory?
No. The tenant only leases the right to use the factory under an asset lease; ownership of the works stays with the lessor. What the tenant must do is record the factory address as the project implementation location in the investment file and complete operating procedures (environment, fire protection for its own actual activities).
Can a factory without fire-protection acceptance be leased as a temporary warehouse?
It should not be, and legally it is a direct risk: works subject to fire-protection acceptance may be put into use only after the acceptance document is issued, warehouse use included. Operating before acceptance can lead to suspension and administrative fines, and may void property insurance.
How long is a ready-built factory lease usually, and what constrains it?
Market practice commonly runs 3–10 years depending on fit-out scale; the legal constraint is that the lease cannot exceed the tenant’s investment project term and the lessor’s remaining land-lease frame inside the park (clause 4 of Article 202 of the 2024 Land Law — in-park land use terms follow project terms).
How far may a tenant renovate a ready-built factory?
As far as the contract and construction law allow: renovations not altering load-bearing structure, function or fire safety usually need only the lessor’s agreement; renovations changing structure or function require a construction permit and supplementary fire-protection appraisal/acceptance. All renovations should be listed in a contract annex with the exit restoration agreement.
