Untangling land disputes: Solutions needed from practical experience.

The misery of having a "land ownership certificate"

The family of Ms. Bui Thi Hoa, residing in Tan Binh town (Yen Son district), has lived stably on their family land for decades. In 1992, the land was granted a Certificate of Land Use Rights. However, a year later, the Yen Son district authorities claimed that the land was incorrectly granted and needed to be reissued due to the historical land area being under the management of the Song Lo State Farm. Therefore, Ms. Hoa's family has repeatedly submitted applications for reissue, but to this day, after more than 30 years, they have still not received the Certificate of Land Use Rights. Ms. Hoa shared: “We submitted the application, supplemented the documents, waited for verification, and then waited for the review meeting. Every year we go to ask, and all we get is the answer, ‘we have to re-determine the origin of the previous purchase and sale,’ we have to find the old land allocation documents before we can resolve it. It's not just my family; dozens of households in the neighborhood are also in the same situation. We can't transfer ownership, mortgage, or even repair and upgrade our houses. We don't know how much longer we have to wait.”

Receiving administrative procedures related to land for citizens at the Provincial Public Administrative Service Center.

Mr. Bui Van Quy's family, residing in Group 8, Hung Thanh Ward ( Tuyen Quang City), owns a 50 square meter plot of land designated for residential use. Mr. Quy wishes to convert the land from garden land to residential land to obtain a separate land title for his son and build a new house. He submitted the application six months ago, but it remains unresolved. His current house is dilapidated, but he cannot build a new one due to the unresolved land procedures.

The situation of Ms. Hoa and Mr. Quy is not unique. In Tuyen Quang city and districts such as Yen Son, Son Duong, Ham Yen, etc., hundreds of households are also in the same situation of "residential land but without land ownership certificates." Many cases involve people who have lived there for decades, without disputes or violations, but their applications remain pending. Common reasons given include "lack of official cadastral maps," "obstacles related to unadjusted land use planning," or "lack of human resources to process applications"...

Not only the people, but also businesses are facing difficulties in accessing land. Ngoc Ha Tuyen Quang Co., Ltd. has compensated households whose land is within the planned area and has constructed the SPA HOTEL hot spring resort complex according to the detailed plan approved by the Provincial People's Committee. However, during the process of preparing land procedures, discrepancies and overlaps in the land use right certificates have arisen, leading to the inability to proceed with land use purpose conversion and land use right transfer registration.

According to our investigation, many businesses investing in industrial production, tourism services, or urban infrastructure are facing difficulties in the process of changing land use purposes and land allocation. The reasons are believed to be the complex procedures, unclear delegation of authority, and a tendency to "avoid responsibility" in handling applications by some professional staff.

The explanation from the authorities.

Comrade Pham Dinh Tu, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, stated: Currently, over 94% of the province's land area has been granted land use right certificates. The remaining unissued land area is mainly due to issues related to violations by people during land use. Typical examples include: illegal land use conversion, building houses on rice paddies, encroaching on agricultural and forestry land; unclear land origin documents, and even land transfers and exchanges without proper documentation. In addition, while the legal framework regarding land has undergone many changes, many shortcomings remain in practice. The updating and revision of cadastral maps in many areas is incomplete; and in some cases, the determination of land use origin by people lacks clear legal basis.
According to Comrade Pham Dinh Tu, the solution to the problem in the coming time is for the province to re-measure and determine the land area of agricultural and forestry farms to serve as a basis for issuing land use certificates for an area of approximately 17,000 hectares. For households violating land encroachment regulations, administrative penalties will be imposed, and they will be required to restore the land to its original state. At the same time, the province will proceed with building a land database; once completed, all land-related issues will be resolved.

Regarding the issue of changing land use purposes for businesses, Mr. Tu said that this process involves many levels and sectors: from the commune-level People's Committee confirming, to the district preparing the dossier and conducting the appraisal... Each stage can encounter obstacles, prolonging the resolution time. The province is striving to reform administrative procedures and apply information technology. In addition, to definitively resolve the obstacles, it is necessary to strengthen the inspection of public service. In reality, through inspections, many cases of "hoarding" people's dossiers without resolving them for personal gain have had to be dealt with.

Comrade Dinh Van Tinh, Vice Chairman of the Yen Son District People's Committee, also stated that most of the obstacles in granting land use right certificates in the district currently relate to land areas previously managed by agricultural and forestry farms. To overcome this, it is necessary to accelerate the re-measurement of land in agricultural and forestry farms and promote the construction of a land database. In the past, the District People's Committee has issued many documents to rectify and strengthen the responsibility for resolving administrative procedures related to land in the district. The District People's Committee has also intensified the dissemination of information and publicized the hotline number for receiving feedback and suggestions from organizations and citizens. People encountering difficulties can directly call the Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee, the Head of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the Deputy Chief of the Office of the District People's Council and People's Committee, or contact via email: ubndyensontuyenquang@gmail.com. Simultaneously, the process and processing time for each type of application are publicly available on the electronic system, with clear progress updates. Therefore, in the future, people will no longer be passive, and negative consequences will be limited.

Land is a vital resource for economic development, providing a place for people to live and work. Resolving land-related bottlenecks is not only an administrative task but also a political and ethical responsibility of the government towards its people. The province is facing a great opportunity for strong reforms, aiming for a more open, transparent, and efficient land governance system – something that citizens and businesses have long awaited.

Source: https://baotuyenquang.com.vn/go-nut-that-dat-dai-can-loi-giai-tu-thuc-tien-210069.html