In 2002, Ms. Nguyen Thi Tai's family (Ho Chi Minh City) bought a piece of land to plant perennial trees with handwritten paper. The origin of the land is as follows:
In 1988, the Commune People's Committee allocated land to Mr. A according to the Land Allocation and Reception Contract for agricultural production, with a long-term land use term. When the state built a part of the irrigation project on the land plot, Mr. A received compensation from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Agriculture. In January 2002, Mr. A sold a part of the land plot to Mr. B. In April 2002, Mr. B sold a part of the land plot to Ms. Tai.
In 2014, the District People's Committee sent a letter inviting her to submit documents to consider issuing a Certificate of Land Use Rights. Recently, Ms. Tai learned that the entire land area, including her house and surrounding people, was recorded in the cadastral map as public land according to the 2015 official dispatch.
Ms. Tai went to the Commune People's Committee to ask, and the citizen reception officer said that she was waiting for the state to review to consider which part is public land and which part is private land, then a Certificate will be issued. She learned that land allocated not within her authority is still granted a Certificate according to the provisions of Article 23 of Decree No. 43/2014/ND-CP.
She asked, if the above land plot was allocated in 1988, why is it still considered public land? Does the review of public land include the purpose of determining the boundary between public and private land?
The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment answers this question as follows:
The content of her reflection is that the specific case is under the jurisdiction of the locality and needs to be based on the archived records, specific regulations that the locality has issued under its authority to implement the Land Law for consideration and resolution; therefore, the Ministry has no basis to answer. The Ministry would like to state some principles as follows:
Current land law has specifically stipulated the issuance of Certificates of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land for the first time to households and individuals who are using land but are allocated land not under their authority in Article 140 of the Land Law.
The Government has fully stipulated the components of the submitted dossier, order, and procedures for implementation in Decree No. 101/2024/ND-CP dated July 29, 2024 and Decree No. 151/2025/ND-CP dated June 12, 2025.
At the same time, the Minister of Agriculture and Environment has issued Decisions: No. 2304/QD-BNNMT dated June 23, 2024, No. 3380/QD-BNNMT dated August 25, 2025 announcing administrative procedures in the land sector within the scope of state management functions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, accordingly, specific land procedures have been regulated, including: (1) Order of implementation; (2) Method of implementation; (3) Composition, number of dossiers; (4) Time of resolution; (5) Subjects of administrative procedures; (6) Agencies performing administrative procedures; (7) Results of administrative procedures; (8) Fees and charges; (9) Form names, declarations; (10) Requirements and conditions for performing administrative procedures (if any); (11) Legal basis of administrative procedures.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment informed her that it was known and studied for implementation. In the process of carrying out administrative procedures on land, in case she does not agree with the results of administrative procedure resolution of the competent authority in the locality, she has the right to complain and sue administrative decisions and administrative acts on land management according to the provisions of Article 237 of the Land Law and Article 7 of the 2011 Law on Complaints.
