Building a house on agricultural land before July 1, 2004 will not be fined?

Reply:Clause 4, Article 3, Decree 123/2024/ND-CP stipulates one of the principles for handling administrative violations as follows: "Households and individuals using land before October 15, 1993 without a document handling violations from a competent state agency before the effective date of the 2024 Land Law shall not be handled according to the provisions of this Decree".

Thus, only cases of land use before October 15, 1993 with violations but there is no document handling the violation from the competent state agency, such as building houses on agricultural land before October 15, 1993, and not being handled before the effective date of the 2024 Land Law (ie before August 1, 2024), will not be subject to administrative sanctions according to the provisions of the Decree on handling administrative violations in the land sector.

Regarding the July 1, 2004 timeline, one of the new points of the 2024 Land Law is that non-residential construction works built before July 1, 2004 without the required documents will still be granted a red book for that construction, mentioned in Article 149 of the 2024 Land Law as follows:

Article 149. Granting of Certificates of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land for assets that are construction works other than houses

1. Households, individuals, and residential communities that own construction works are granted a Certificate of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land when they have one of the following documents:

a) Construction permit or construction permit with a term in case of having to apply for a construction permit according to the provisions of the law on construction;

b) Documents on ownership of construction works issued by competent authorities over time, except for cases where the State has managed and arranged for use;

c) Documents on sale, donation or inheritance of construction works in accordance with the provisions of law have been notarized or certified in accordance with regulations;

d) Court judgment or decision or document of competent state agency that has come into legal effect that determines ownership of construction works;

d) One of the documents specified in points a, b, c and d of this clause, on which another person's name is written and there is no dispute.

2. In case a household, individual or residential community has a construction work built before July 1, 2004 but does not have the documents specified in Clause 1 of this Article and is not in dispute, it shall be granted a Certificate of land use rights and ownership of assets attached to land.