Expecting to cut procedures, reduce costs for people and businesses
One of the contents attracting the attention of experts, businesses and people in the 2026 Draft Land Law is the proposal not to continue to stipulate mandatory notarization and certification for contracts and documents exercising the rights of land users.
This is considered a remarkable change in legislative thinking," Lawyer Diep Nang Binh (Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association) said.
According to the lawyer, if approved by the National Assembly, this regulation will not only directly affect the real estate transaction process, but also set a requirement to improve the mechanism to ensure the safety and transparency of transactions related to land use rights.
The 2024 Land Law currently establishes a fairly strict control mechanism for transactions related to land use rights. According to Clause 3, Article 27 of the 2024 Land Law, contracts for transfer, donation, mortgage, capital contribution with land use rights or land use rights and assets attached to land must be notarized or authenticated, except for some cases prescribed by law with exceptions.
Point a, Clause 3, Article 27 stipulates: "Transfer, donation, mortgage, capital contribution contracts with land use rights, land use rights and assets attached to land must be notarized or certified, except for the cases specified in point b of this clause".
Meanwhile, point b, clause 3, Article 27 allows some transactions such as leasing, subleasing land use rights, converting agricultural land use rights or transactions where one party or the parties are real estate business organizations are allowed to choose notarization and authentication according to needs.
Setting mandatory requirements for notarization and authentication is not simply to confirm the signatures of the parties but also aims to prevent disputes, check the legality of transactions, verify the civil act capacity of the subject and limit acts of forgery and fraud in the process of transferring land use rights.
Lawyer Binh said that a noteworthy new point lies in Article 27 of the Draft revised Land Law.
Unlike the 2024 Land Law, Article 27 of the draft only stipulates conditions for land users to exercise their rights, including conversion, transfer, lease, sublease, donation, inheritance, mortgage and capital contribution in land use rights.
It is noteworthy that Article 27 of the Draft no longer stipulates that contracts and documents exercising the rights of land users must be notarized or certified as in the 2024 Land Law.
The removal of this regulation shows that the drafting agency is changing the method of state management of land transactions in the direction of reducing formal conditions, simplifying administrative procedures and creating more favorable conditions for people and businesses in the process of exercising land rights.
According to lawyers, for many years, the requirement for notarization and certification has been considered an indispensable step in most land use right transfer transactions.
However, in reality, this procedure also incurs additional time, costs and the number of dossiers that people must carry out before registering changes at the land registration agency.
The proposal to abolish the mandatory notarization and certification regulations is expected to contribute to reducing administrative procedures, shortening transaction time, reducing compliance costs and creating a more favorable environment for the real estate market.
This is also a direction consistent with the policy of administrative procedure reform, digital transformation and building a serving administration that the Government has been implementing in recent years.
From the perspective of state management, reducing one intermediary stage in the transaction process can contribute to improving the efficiency of administrative procedure resolution if a mechanism for electronic land registration, data sharing and synchronous information control between competent authorities is built at the same time.
Need a mechanism to control legal risks
Besides the benefits of procedural reform, this proposal also raises many concerns.
According to Lawyer Binh, the practice of resolving disputes shows that notarization is not only meaningful in terms of form but also a risk prevention mechanism.
Through notarization activities, notaries are responsible for checking documents, verifying subject status, assessing civil act capacity, clarifying the voluntary will of the parties and refusing notarization for transactions showing signs of violating the law or social ethics.
In many cases, notarized dossiers become an important source of evidence to help procedural agencies determine transaction developments, limiting the situation of denying signatures, forging documents or disputes over the will to conclude contracts.
Therefore, the abolition of the mandatory notarization regulation raises the requirement to synchronously design other assurance mechanisms to compensate for potential legal loopholes.
For example, it is necessary to clearly define the responsibility of the land registration agency in checking the legality of the dossier; complete the land database system and electronic identification; and at the same time strengthen sanctions against acts of forging dossiers, forging subjects or providing untruthful information during the registration of changes.
In other words, the removal of the mandatory requirement for notarization will only be truly effective when accompanied by a new control mechanism capable of ensuring a level of legal safety equivalent to or higher than the current mechanism.
At the present time, the above content is only a proposal in the draft revised Land Law and has no enforcement value.
Until the National Assembly officially passes the amended law and the document takes effect, transfer, donation, mortgage, and capital contribution transactions with land use rights must still comply with Clause 3, Article 27 of the 2024 Land Law. Accordingly, contracts in cases prescribed by law must still be notarized or certified.
