Can a Home Built on Village-Contracted Land in Vietnam Obtain a Land Use Rights Certificate? Ministry Responds
A family in Hai Phong paid VND 6 million in 1996 for a long-term arrangement covering 450 square meters of village-contracted land and built a home there in 1998. Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said it could not determine how the case should be handled under the 2024 Land Law, or whether the payment could be credited, without the relevant records.
The family of Hai Phong resident Đỗ Văn Tân paid the village management board VND 6 million in 1996 for a long-term contract arrangement covering 450 square meters of land, primarily for cultivation. The family built a home there in 1998 and has lived there continuously since, saying there is no dispute over the land. Đỗ Văn Tân asked whether this constituted a land allocation by an unauthorized body and whether the payment made at the time could be counted toward the financial obligations involved in obtaining a certificate.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said it could not make a specific determination about the family’s case without the relevant files and documents. Under Article 140 of the 2024 Land Law, the issuance of a land use rights certificate for land allocated to households or individuals by an unauthorized body, or acquired through transactions involving houses and associated land that did not comply with the law, is handled under that article. Land use fees payable when obtaining a certificate for such land are calculated under Article 12 of the government’s Decree No. 103/2024/NĐ-CP, issued on July 30, 2024.
Đỗ Văn Tân also asked which penalty rules would apply to what he described as a violation in 2003 if his land were instead handled under Article 139 of the Land Law, which concerns unlawful land use before July 1, 2014. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said that if the family’s land use is determined to constitute land encroachment or occupation, the two-year time limit for imposing an administrative penalty runs from the date the violation was discovered, under the government’s Decree No. 123/2024/NĐ-CP, issued on October 4, 2024. Records must also be examined to determine whether the conduct had previously been discovered.
The ministry reached no case-specific conclusion on whether the VND 6 million payment could be credited or whether Article 139 or Article 140 should apply. It advised Đỗ Văn Tân to submit the relevant files and documents to the competent authority for review.
Source: VietVance
