Lawyer Quach Thanh Luc - Director of Phap Tri Law Company (Hanoi Bar Association) - said that to re-determine the type of land, thereby being able to change the land use purpose without having to pay money; clarify whether residential land, T-signed land is residential land or not; and at the same time ensure the rights related to residential land or compensation according to residential land prices, people need to proactively exercise their rights.
Currently, there are 4 ways for people to request to re-determine the type of land and clarify residential land for the issued certificate.
The first way is to apply Clause 6, Article 141 of the 2024 Land Law.
According to this regulation, for certificates issued before July 1, 2004, if the dossier contains documents specified in Article 137 of the 2024 Land Law, people can re-determine the type of land with an area larger than the area recorded in the issued certificate.
However, the application of this regulation faces some limited conditions. First of all, the certificate must be issued before July 1, 2004.
In addition, land use rights have not been transferred. In fact, in many cases, certificates have been transferred to children, grandchildren or others, so they no longer meet the conditions to re-determine land types according to this plan.
The second way is to apply Clause 2, Article 20 of Decree 49/2026 detailing and guiding a number of articles of Resolution No. 254/2025 of the National Assembly on a number of mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties and obstacles in organizing the implementation of the Land Law.
Accordingly, for certificates issued before July 1, 2004, but not clearly defining the purpose of residential land use, but generally or mixed with other types of land such as arable land, residential land, T-shaped land, QT land..., the Government's document assigns localities to issue specific regulations to determine the area of residential land suitable to the actual conditions in each locality.
Currently, some other localities have concretized this regulation to apply in their areas. Therefore, people can base on Clause 2, Article 20 of Decree 49 of 2026, and at the same time compare with the decision of the Provincial People's Committee to concretize this regulation to consider and resolve their cases.
However, the bottleneck of this method is that the certificate must be issued before July 1, 2004. Meanwhile, in reality, there are many certificates issued after this time.
The third way is to apply Article 152 of the 2024 Land Law.
According to this regulation, when people find that the certificate is issued not in accordance with regulations, incorrectly identified, or not for the right land use purpose, thereby affecting their legitimate rights and interests, people have the right to request the agency that issued the certificate to carry out correction, adjustment, cancellation or revocation according to regulations.
This is a relatively common option and can be applied in many cases.
However, this option also has a limitation. Unlike the two ways mentioned above, the issue is not at the time of issuing the certificate but in whether the land use right has been transferred or not. If the certificate has been transferred to a third party, the intervention and handling of functional agencies will encounter obstacles.
The fourth way is to sue the case in court under Clause 5, Article 152 of the 2024 Land Law.
Clause 5, Article 152 of the 2024 Land Law may be the basis for handling the above cases. If people cannot apply the regulation requiring state administrative agencies to revoke or cancel certificates that are considered to have been issued for the wrong purpose of land use, they can choose the path of suing the case in court.
Through the process of resolving the case, the court can review the dossier for issuing the certificate, inventory book, map and related documents to determine whether the issuance of the certificate at that time is in accordance with legal regulations or not.
For example, if the map and land register record T-shaped land, residential land and when compared with legal regulations at the time of issuance of the certificate show that this area must be identified as residential land, then it is necessary to consider the correctness of the functional agency determining both residential land and garden land, or separating a part of the area, for example 200m2, 300m2 or 400m2 is residential land, the remaining area is identified as garden land.
The competent court shall consider and rule whether an act or administrative decision of an administrative agency at the time of issuance of the certificate is correct or wrong compared to legal regulations. If violations are determined, the effective judgment or decision of the court will be the legal basis to request the State administrative agency to implement according to the judgment.
However, filing a lawsuit against a decision or administrative act that has occurred since 2004 also raises another legal issue, which is the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit. When the statute of limitations has expired, bringing the case to court for resolution still has certain difficulties and it is necessary to base on each specific case to determine an appropriate handling plan.
In principle, the court must not refuse to resolve a civil case because there is no law to apply. Therefore, for issues that cannot be resolved through administrative means, people can consider choosing the path of litigation to request the judicial agency to consider and protect their legitimate rights and interests.
