What is adjacent land?
Currently, the law in general and the land law in particular do not stipulate or explain what is adjacent land. However, based on practice and the term "adjacent land" can be understood in the most common sense as follows: Adjacent land is the land area adjacent to residential land in a land plot with many different types of land.
Legally, adjacent land has no specific boundaries, and adjacent land is usually non-agricultural land that is not residential land, and other types of agricultural land such as land for growing annual crops, land for growing perennial crops, etc. are adjacent to the residential land area in the same plot of land.
When is adjacent land converted to residential land?
Point b and point d, Clause 1, Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law stipulate as follows: Cases of land use purpose change that must be permitted by competent state agencies include:
- Convert agricultural land to non-agricultural land;
- Converting non-agricultural land that is not residential land to residential land.
Thus, all types of land that want to be converted to residential land must be permitted by the competent State agency.
In other words, for land users, only when there is a decision allowing the change of land use purpose from the district level (district, county, town, city under province, city under centrally-run city) will they be allowed to change to residential land (to build houses...).
In addition, the State agency competent to permit the change of land use purpose does not arbitrarily decide to permit the change of purpose to residential land but must base it on certain grounds.
The basis for allowing the change of land use purpose is clearly stated in Clause 5, Article 116 of the 2014 Land Law as follows: The basis for allowing the change of land use purpose from agricultural land in residential areas, agricultural land in the same plot of land with residential land to residential land or the change of land use purpose from non-agricultural land that is not residential land to residential land for households and individuals is the district-level land use planning or the general planning or the zoning planning according to the provisions of the law on urban planning approved by the competent authority.
The People's Committee at the district level decides to allow the change of land use purpose based on the district-level land use planning or the general planning or the zoning planning according to the provisions of the law on urban planning approved by the competent authority.
And according to Clause 2, Article 57 of the 2024 Land Law, when changing the land use purpose, the land user must perform: Financial obligations according to the provisions of law; Land use regime, rights and obligations of land users are applied according to the land type after the purpose of use is changed.
Documents and procedures for converting to residential land
Pursuant to Clause 3, Article 44 of Decree 102/2024/ND-CP, the procedures for permitting change of land use purpose in cases of land allocation without land use fee collection are as follows:
Step 1: Submit application
The person applying for land use purpose change shall submit an application for land use purpose change according to Form No. 02c in the Appendix issued with Decree 102/2024/ND-CP to the One-stop Department according to the regulations of the Provincial People's Committee on receiving dossiers and returning results of administrative procedure settlement at the provincial, district and commune levels;
Step 2: Solve
The competent land management agency assigns the Land Registration Office to provide information on the land database and create a copy of the cadastral map of the land plot in cases where the dossier is complete and valid.
At the same time, guide the applicant to supplement the cadastral measurement of the land plot for the land plot in the place where there is no cadastral map according to regulations or re-do the dossier or supplement the dossier and resubmit it to the competent land management agency in case the dossier is incomplete or invalid; review and check the dossier; conduct field inspection;
Next, the competent land management agency completes the dossier and submits it to the People's Committee at the competent level to issue a decision allowing the change of land use purpose.
Time to carry out procedures for changing land use purpose shall not exceed 20 days.
