Worry from the hills being leveled
Over the past time, many people in Pac Khuong village (Thien Thuat commune, Lang Son province) have expressed concern and confusion about a household in the area arbitrarily bringing machinery to level hills and fill rice fields for the purpose of subdividing and selling land plots.
Legally unclear transactions not only disrupt the current state of land but also pose many risks for those who intend to buy land.
Present at the above location in the early days of May, according to reporters' records, a part of the hill behind Mr. Loc Van Dong's house is being massively leveled by excavators.
The surplus soil from the hill is transported by trucks to fill the rice field area and a dry pond of the family.
When seeing strangers taking pictures, the operation of machinery in this area suddenly stopped.
In the role of people looking to buy land, we had a conversation with Mr. Dong. He said that this leveling was initially to overcome the consequences of landslides from the flood in 2025.
However, when we questioned why we did not see the construction of embankments to ensure long-term safety, Mr. Dong said he would definitely not build embankments because "there are still many items to worry about".
He also optimistically believes that if the soil on the hill landslides, it will only be mud, "just dredge the ditch and dredge it and it's done".
This subjectivity makes many passersby feel concerned about the safety level of the land.
Potential legal risks from "book-covering" promises
Not only stopping at leveling, Mr. Dong also confirmed that his family is in need of reselling these land areas at a price of 2.5 million VND/m2, applied to all locations and the seller will take care of all costs to "issue a red book".
According to the land owner, this area is nearly 4,000m2 wide and it is expected to open an additional internal road for people to travel conveniently.
Regarding the payment method, Mr. Dong issued a rather "flexible" deposit regulation: "Depending on the level of familiarity, the deposit will be different. Familiar people deposit less, strangers need more deposits, and the remaining amount will be paid when they receive the book.
In fact, some people have trusted and paid to buy land. On the scene, some people carefully erected fences to mark their land plot of more than 120m2.
Mr. Dong said that he is currently "waiting" to complete procedures to convert from garden land to residential land. However, these promises seem to be going against current regulations.
According to the Regulation on conditions for land separation in Lang Son province (issued together with Decision No. 38/2024/QD-UBND), the minimum area allowed for land separation for agricultural land is 180m2, and for production forest land is 1,000m2.
In addition, the law also clearly stipulates that land plot separation should not be carried out for land plots that violate land laws and have not been handled by competent authorities according to regulations.
Therefore, promising to cut and sell land plots of only about 120m2 and "covering out the book" right now is not legally sufficient, bringing very high risks to buyers.
What makes public opinion even more concerned is that this land leveling area is not too far from the administrative center, only less than 1km from the headquarters of Thien Thuat Commune People's Committee and about 500m from the Commune Police, but these activities seem not to have been completely prevented.
Talking to us, Mr. Nguyen Huy Thai - civil servant of the Economic Department of Thien Thuat commune informed: "The area of Mr. Loc Van Dong's family actually includes 2 small rice land plots (1604.7m2 and 146.7m2) along with a large area of 53,336m2 of forest land".
This commune official also said that the act of arbitrarily leveling, excavating forest land and filling rice land without permission from competent authorities is an act of violating the Land Law.
At the same time, the representative also confirmed that currently the commune government has not received any requests for land use purpose conversion or land use right transfer dossiers from this household.
