In a resolution from its legal thematic session on September 18, the government also emphasized that maintaining mandatory notarization for land transactions ensures consistency with specialized laws on notarization.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the lead drafting agency for the revised Land Law project, was tasked with incorporating this directive into the draft law.

The current Land Law stipulates that contracts for the transfer, gifting, mortgaging, and capital contribution of land use rights and land-attached assets must be notarized or authenticated.

However, the revised draft Land Law presented to the National Assembly in August omitted this requirement. It only specified conditions for exercising land users' rights, such as having a certificate, the land not being under dispute or having resolved disputes, and the land use rights not being seized.

Real estate in East TP HCM, featuring apartment projects, land plots, and townhouses, August 2026. Photo: Quynh Tran

Many National Assembly members proposed careful consideration and a full assessment of the social impact and potential risks to legal safety in land transactions if the mandatory notarization requirement were removed. Their reasoning was that notaries not only verify personal and asset information but also check the legal capacity and voluntary consent of the parties involved.

The Notarization Law mandates that important transactions, requiring a high degree of legal safety, must be subject to mandatory notarization as specified by law or decree. Therefore, if the draft Land Law does not mention this, its application could lead to differing interpretations and a lack of basis for extraction.

Furthermore, land is a unique asset with significant value, impacting many stakeholders and social interests. Removing mandatory notarization from the law could increase social costs if transactions are invalidated or if fraud and disputes arise.

Explaining the matter, Minister of Agriculture and Environment Trinh Viet Hung stated that notarization of land transactions is an administrative procedure and thus does not necessarily need to be stipulated in the law. This content, he noted, would be included in the decree guiding the implementation of the Land Law.

In the resolution, the government highlighted that the revised Land Law project is crucial, directly and broadly impacting economic, political, and social life, and is of particular interest to citizens and businesses.

Therefore, the government instructed the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment to supplement and refine content regarding the criteria, principles, and mechanisms for determining, inspecting, and monitoring land price decisions. The policy on land prices and the State's role in regulating, managing, and determining land prices need clarification.

Land use fees and land lease fees for business production, housing development, and leasing; financial mechanisms for handling land rent differentials; and addressing fallow or underutilized land; along with specific criteria for identifying these land types, must also be included in the draft.

The drafting agency is to add mechanisms to prevent corruption, negativity, and policy profiteering related to compensation, resettlement, and illegal construction; as well as specific mechanisms to definitively resolve long-standing, unresolved projects.

The land database will soon be completed, connecting information based on maximum transparency to promote real estate transactions.

The government emphasized that the draft law must simplify administrative procedures following a one-stop, single-point principle; and mandate registration for land use rights and all land changes.

The Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, and the Ministry of Construction were tasked with collecting public feedback via the VNeID system for the Land Law, Housing Law, and Real Estate Business Law projects.

Deputy Prime Minister Ho Quoc Dung was assigned to direct the completion of the revised Land Law project. The Minister of Agriculture and Environment will be authorized by the Prime Minister to sign the submission to the National Assembly for this draft law during the 2nd session of the 16th National Assembly.