Procedures for converting agricultural land to residential land

Lao Dong Newspaper Legal Consulting Office replied:

Point b, Clause 1, Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law stipulates that converting agricultural land to non-agricultural land in cases of changing land use purpose must be permitted by a competent State agency.

Article 227 of the 2024 Land Law stipulates the procedures for permitting change of land use purpose as follows:

Cases of land use purpose change must be permitted by competent State agencies as prescribed in this Law and shall be carried out in accordance with the following order and procedures:

1. Land users submit applications for change of land use purpose according to regulations.

2. The competent land management agency shall check the conditions for changing land use purposes. In case the dossier does not meet the regulations, the land user shall be instructed to supplement the dossier and resubmit it to the competent land management agency.

3. The competent land management agency has the following responsibilities:

a) In case of applying land prices in the land price list to calculate land use fees and land rents, the competent land management agency shall prepare a dossier and submit it to the People's Committee at the competent level to issue a decision permitting the change of land use purpose, land allocation, and land lease;

b) In case of determining specific land prices to calculate land use fees and land rents, the competent land management agency shall prepare a dossier and submit it to the People's Committee at the competent level to issue a decision permitting the change of land use purpose, land allocation, and land lease; organize the determination of land prices, and submit them to the competent authority for approval of land prices to calculate land use fees and land rents.

4. Land users shall pay land use fees and land rents in accordance with the provisions of law; in cases where land use fees and land rents are reduced, the land use fees and land rent collection agency shall reduce the land use fees and land rents for land users.

5. The competent land management agency signs a land lease contract in cases where the State leases land; transfers the dossier to the land registration organization or a branch of the land registration organization to carry out the registration, issue the Certificate of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land, update and correct the land database, cadastral records and hand over the Certificate of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land to the land user.

6. In case of receiving transfer of land use rights and changing land use purpose, the procedure for registering transfer of land use rights and the procedure for changing land use purpose shall be carried out at the same time as the procedure for changing land use purpose according to the provisions of this Article.

Thus, the order and procedures for converting agricultural land to residential land are prescribed as above.