The Government has just issued Decree 151/2025/ND-CP on the division of land management authority between local authorities at two levels. Accordingly, from July 1, 2025, the People's Committees at the commune level and the Chairman of the People's Committees at the commune level will be assigned to perform a series of tasks and powers in the field of land, which was previously under the district level. This is an important step, to create maximum convenience for people and businesses when carrying out land procedures.
Talking to Lao Dong, Dr. Tran Xuan Luong - Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute for Real Estate Market Research and Evaluation - said that decentralization and delegation of authority in the land sector to the commune level will contribute to shortening the time for processing documents. Instead of having to wait for the current transit process between the commune and district levels, in the coming month, many administrative procedures in land management will be directly assigned to the commune level. This helps the process of processing documents faster, reducing prolonged waiting time.
According to Mr. Luong, assigning the right to verify land origin, solve field problems and carry out procedures for granting Land Use Rights Certificates to the commune level will help save costs for people. In fact, many cases were previously handled by the district level while not clearly understanding the current situation, leading to inaccurate settlement.
However, in addition to the benefits of simplifying procedures and improving management efficiency, this model also has some potential risks. According to Mr. Luong, if commune-level cadres lack capacity and are easily affected by group interests, it can lead to negativity in the process of performing public duties.
To limit risks, he proposed to strengthen supervision and ensure transparency in the operations of commune-level authorities, especially promoting the digitalization of the process of handling documents to facilitate monitoring and inspection. Thereby, errors in land management will be minimized, causing less impact on people.
He also emphasized the role of post-inspection work. In case errors are discovered after the licensing, it is necessary to revoke the relevant documents and handle the responsibility of the head.
Regarding land policies when implementing the two-level local government model, Minister of Agriculture and Environment Do Duc Duy said that in the spirit of the authority of the district level, it will be brought to the commune level, only the complex authorities such as determining land prices, the commune level does not have enough capacity to do it will be brought to the provincial level.
According to Minister Do Duc Duy, land is the strongest decentralization sector. All contents under the authority of the district level will be brought to the commune level and this will create many advantages for the people. Currently, the Government is working very synchronously. District-level civil servants brought to the commune level are organized into departments and offices, and those civil servants will work directly.
"Most district-level cadres are brought to communes when they have finished their activities. The commune level previously only had civil servants, but had not yet exercised these powers. Now we have to bring in district-level cadres so that district cadres have enough experience and capacity to help commune-level cadres to implement in this initial stage" - Minister Do Duc Duy analyzed.
According to the provisions of Decree No. 151/2025/ND-CP, some land management powers are adjusted between government levels, to ensure streamlining, clarification, and more convenience in implementation; many administrative procedures were previously under the authority of the district level and are now decentralized to communes. For example, approving plans for the use of agricultural land and rice fields; deciding to reclaim land in specific cases according to regulations; issuing land recovery notices and approving compensation, support and resettlement plans; granting certificates of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land; re-determining residential land areas; deciding to allocate land, lease land, change land use purposes...
