Hanoi City legislators Saturday postponed for the second time a local administrations plan to sell state-owned villas.

The sales had been halted by a government resolution in September as the villas had not been properly measured or priced.

Saturdays decision, which won nearly 71 percent of votes at the Hanoi Peoples Council session, will prolong the freeze on the sale of over 610 villas, most of which were built during the pre-1954 French colonial time.

The council asked the city administration to review and improve the plan, which it would reconsider during its next session at the end of the year.

Its better to develop a proper plan late than adopt a carelessly-prepared program now, said council member Pham Xuan Hang before the vote.

Hang criticized the current plan for not clarifying the prices of many villas, which could be as high as tens of millions of US dollars.

Another member, Nguyen Van Nam, said that 24 villas offered for sale did not have their areas mentioned while 63 others were vaguely estimated, and many villas had only their addresses listed.

After the Vietnamese government took over the villas in Hanoi from 1954, it leased them to local people.

Several families often divided the villas among themselves.

Beginning in the 1990s, the government allowed tenants of state-owned houses to buy the properties.

A decree in 2006 further accelerated the process.

By September last year, Hanoi had privatized 149 state-owned villas.

Over 550 others had been partly sold, while tenants of 62 other villas had not agreed to buy them.

Reported by Viet Chien