Revised land law needs to crack down on speculation: experts

Vietnam’s draft revised Land Law must prevent land speculation, and needs regulations to fix loopholes in the sector, heard a workshop in Hanoi early this week.

The Vietnam Bar Federation (VBF) held the workshop to collect opinions for the drafting process of the revised law.

A considerable number of real estate projects have been delayed for decades, causing waste and damage to national resources, not to mention residents affected by site clearance for land allocation.

Project owners should face fines and pay compensation in these cases, said VBF lawyer Truong Anh Tuan.

Explaining the reasons behind land speculation, he said that land prices fail to match real-time conditions. Therefore, people without real demand rush to buy lots of land or houses hoping to make profits by reselling them. He said the amended law needs to crack down on this speculation.

For his part, lawyer Phan Trung Hoai, VBA vice president, said the draft law should clarify the roles and responsibilities of the state as the land-owning representative and the regulator.

He added that Vietnamese legislators need to clearly define the concept that land belongs to all residents.

In Vietnam, land is collectively owned by people and administered by the government on their behalf. Therefore, landowners cannot have full legal ownership of land, and their rights are limited to land use rights allowed by the law.