Highlights of the 2024 Land Law

On January 25, the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association (HoREA) sent a document to the National Assembly Standing Committee, expressing its welcome for the National Assembly's vote to pass the 2024 Land Law, perfecting a synchronous legal system to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of land management and use, creating momentum to turn our country into a high-income developed country by 2045.

The State is responsible for issuing "red books" to land users.

According to Mr. Le Hoang Chau, Chairman of HoREA, the 2024 Land Law, which was passed and will take effect from January 1, 2025, has 9 outstanding "highlights".

The 2024 Land Law was passed and took effect from January 1, 2025, with 9 outstanding highlights.

Firstly, the 2024 Land Law allows the expansion of "the limit for receiving the transfer of agricultural land use rights of individuals to no more than 15 times the limit for agricultural land allocation of individuals for each type of land" in Clause 1, Article 177 and the regulations on "concentration of agricultural land" and "accumulation of agricultural land" in Articles 192 and 193 to create conditions for agriculture to develop rapidly, sustainably, effectively, and firmly ensure national food security...

Accordingly, the 2024 Land Law will create conditions for more effective use of agricultural land so that the agricultural sector can develop more and more, farmers can become richer and the face of the countryside can become more and more innovative, which will positively impact both the economy and the real estate market in the process of urbanization and development of rural residential areas, increasing the demand for housing of rural people, especially billionaire farmers.

Second, Clause 9, Article 138 of the 2024 Land Law has added the following provision: “9. The State is responsible for granting Certificates of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land to cases that have registered and meet the conditions prescribed in this Article”.

This is an innovative regulation on the State's responsibility to grant Land Use Right Certificates to all land users upon request (with a request) or even in cases where the land user does not request (without a request).

“This is a very big and fundamental change in state management. The 2024 Land Law not only ensures the legitimate rights and interests of land users, but also fully demonstrates the State’s responsibility towards land users and improves the quality of state management of land,” Mr. Le Hoang Chau emphasized.

The third highlight, the 2024 Land Law (Article 79) specifically stipulates 31 cases where the State "recovers land for socio-economic development for national and public interests" and Clause 32, Article 79 also stipulates "In cases of land recovery to implement projects and works for national and public interests that do not fall under the cases prescribed from Clauses 1 to 31 of this Article, the National Assembly shall amend and supplement the cases of land recovery in this Article" to ensure publicity, transparency, ease of supervision and overcome the situation where some localities have rampantly recovered land as happened before.

At the same time, Chapter VII of the 2024 Land Law has strict regulations on "compensation, support, and resettlement when the State recovers land" to ensure the legitimate and legal rights and interests of people whose land is recovered.

The next highlight is that the 2024 Land Law has removed the land price framework and stipulated the land price table in Article 159, according to which the land price table is built annually and the first land price table is announced and applied from January 1, 2026 and adjusted from January 1 of the following year, which will help the land price table approach the market land price, but this regulation will also increase the work pressure for localities.

At the same time, Clause 5, Article 158 and Article 160 of the 2024 Land Law stipulate 4 land valuation methods including the comparison method, the income method, the surplus method, and the land price adjustment coefficient method to determine specific land prices. In case it is necessary to prescribe other land valuation methods that have not been prescribed, the Government shall propose and obtain the consent of the National Assembly Standing Committee to ensure the smooth operation of land valuation for socio-economic development.

The fifth highlight, the 2024 Land Law has added Chapter VIII on "development, management and exploitation of land funds". If the principles of development, management and exploitation of land funds are implemented, the State Land Fund Development Organization will become the largest land fund provider in the primary land market serving investment in socio-economic development and through the implementation of land use rights auctions and bidding for projects using land, the entire differential land rent will be collected into the state budget to serve the public interest, and will be supported and agreed by people whose land is recovered and society.

Ensure the legitimate interests of people whose land is recovered

Sixth, Chapter IX of the 2024 Land Law specifically regulates “land allocation and land lease through auction of land use rights” (Article 125) for clean land created by the State, or “land allocation and land lease through bidding to select investors to implement investment projects using land” (Article 126) for land that has not been cleared, ensuring consistency and unity with the provisions of Chapter VIII on development, management and exploitation of land funds.

"Land allocation and lease through land use rights auction" ensures consistency and uniformity with the provisions of Chapter VIII on land fund development, management and exploitation.

In particular, Article 126 stipulates the mechanism for implementing "bid to select investors" for land that has not been cleared and stipulates that "the winning investor is responsible for providing capital to carry out compensation, support, and resettlement as required by the competent state agency"...

These contents ensure the legitimate and legal interests of land users whose land is recovered are compensated at the correct market price, and are resettled with priority given to on-site resettlement, and there will no longer be a situation where investors are "backed" by someone to "buy cheaply" land from people.

At the same time, it ensures the legal and legitimate interests of investors to clearly know the costs and time to complete compensation for site clearance and be allocated land to carry out the project, and there will no longer be a situation of "brokers" hiding behind "landowners" causing difficulties for investors.

Furthermore, the entire "differential rent" collected into the state budget to serve the public interest will receive the support and consensus of the people whose land is recovered and society.

In the 7th highlight, the association commented that Article 127 of the 2024 Land Law stipulates very loosely the "use of land to implement socio-economic development projects through agreements on receiving land use rights" or "having land use rights" for most socio-economic development projects including social housing projects, except for some restrictions on commercial housing projects according to Point b, Clause 1, Article 127.

Eighth, HoRER welcomes Article 30 of the 2024 Land Law, which stipulates that land users have the “right to choose the form of land rent payment”, either “pay annual land rent” or “pay land rent at once for the entire lease term”. Point b, Clause 1, Article 34 of the 2024 Land Law also allows organizations that are leased land by the State and collect annual land rent to have the right to “mortgage their own assets attached to the land”.

This will “encourage” land users to choose the method of “State leasing land and collecting annual rent” in accordance with the policy of Resolution 18-NQ/TW, because investors have the right to “mortgage their own assets attached to the land at credit institutions” to access credit more easily.

In particular, according to the HOREA representative, the 9th highlight is that the National Assembly allows the immediate application of a number of provisions of the 2024 Land Law such as provisions on land valuation or provisions on land use to implement sea encroachment projects to remove practical obstacles, especially allowing the immediate application of provisions on land valuation will create conditions for the Government to develop and promulgate a "Decree regulating land prices" to implement the 2024 Land Law, instead of promulgating a "Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 44/2014/ND-CP regulating land prices".

Source: https://www.nguoiduatin.vn/nhung-diem-nhan-noi-bat-cua-luat-dat-dai-2024-a647252.html