Although the authorities of Quang Nam province have offered preferential loans to people to renovate seriously degraded houses in the ancient town of Hoi An, many homeowners deny the soft loans. Dozens of old houses can collapse at any time.

Ancient houses in Hoi An often are soaked in water for
 days in the rainy season 

According to the report of the Management Board of Hoi An’s Relics, the ancient town has 56 ancient monuments that are seriously degraded and at risk of collapse at any time.

To preserve and promote the value of these old houses, the Hoi An People's Committee decided to give the owners of the 56 ancient houses three-year soft loans (the interest rate is zero percent) to invest in the maintenance, emergency restoration of their houses.

However, after more than two years of implementation, there are still 15 ancient houses in danger of collapse but they are not been restored.

The Hoi An administration have persuaded the owners of these relics to borrow preferential loans to restore their old houses but these people keep refusing.

According to Le Van Giang, Chairman of the Hoi An People's Committee, the owners of ancient houses deny to borrow preferential loans because of a lot of reasons. The main reason is because these ancient relics are co-owned by brothers in the same family or clan so no one stands up for the loan.

This is one problem that the Hoi An authorities have not found the appropriate solution.

The owners of these houses want to sell the relics to divide the inheritance. However, real estate prices are going down and these houses are located in the streets that are not conducive to trade and the funding for restoration is huge so the sale is not simple.

Hoi An authorities are considering to buy back these houses for restoration. However, funding for this plan is unavailable. Whereas each rainy season, the whole city of Hoi An has to face flooding.

"If reservoirs in the upstream of the Thu Bon River are broken, the ancient town of Hoi An will be surely written off," said Giang.

One of the 15 ancient houses in Hoi An that are in danger of collapse