During the time of land fever in an area, land use right transactions are conducted more frequently, along with activities of illegal merchants, faking themselves as famous real estate corporations and gathering divided residential lots to sell via exaggerating advertisements.
At the end of last year, the Thua Thien – Hue Province Public Security Department prosecuted and detained Tong Phuoc Hoang Hung, Chairman of the Directors Board of Khai Tin JSC., for fraudulence to appropriate billions of VND. He advertised a fake project called ‘Eco Lake’ in Huong Thuy Town in order to sell 71 land lots with a surface area of over 9,000m2 in 2018.
In 2020, this company was also fined an amount of VND100 million (US$4,370) due to imprecise advertising content for an imaginary real estate project named ‘Van Xuan Compound’. One year after, it continued to receive a fine for wrongly advertising for an invented project named ‘Park Hill Villas’ on Thien An Hill of Huong Thuy Town, which is actually just residential land lots of native people.
The Quang Binh Province Public Security Department has just prosecuted and detained 25-year-old Nguyen Thi Lanh from Quang Ninh Province for appropriating more than VND16 billion ($700,000). Taking advantage of the local land fever, she invited many people to invest in land lots to ear profit. She showed off messages between her and an imaginary state official in the Land Fund Center of Quang Binh Province Department of Planning and Investment related to potentially high profit land projects, plus fake documents from this department to convince her victims.
Doing similar illegal activities was Nguyen Tien Sy, a state official of Quang Binh Province Department of Natural Resources and Environment. Boasting about his ability to handle all matters concerning land use right, he encouraged people to give him fees for these services. He then faked official documents to appropriate over VND4 billion ($174,700) and $17,000 of four people from Dong Hoi City and Bo Trach District and ran away.
Fraudulences related to land use right seem increasing during prolonged land fevers in Lam Dong Province. Chairman of Hiep An Commune People’s Committee informed that at present, many land brokers are posting advertisements on social networks. Most of them are unfortunately imprecise information about current forestry land status of such areas as Huong Ly Hill in K’Ren Hamlet. Purchasing these lots with unofficial contracts, so only when buyers begin constructing residential buildings can they discover the lots are under the management of the forestry office.
Another severe influence of land fevers besides scams is the inability of local farmers to purchase agricultural land for crop cultivation.
Tran Van Toan from Quang Tien Commune of Cu M’gar District in Dak Lak Province shared that it is a mission impossible for farmers like him to buy more land to grow coffee at the moment, even with a savings account for many years. He added that the land lot his neighbor sold last year with the price of VND120 million ($5,240) per 500m2 now comes to VND300 million ($13,100). Each lot of that size earns a profit of only VND7 million ($306) a year, so farmers find it unmanageable to invest money in the land.
Vice Chairman of Cu M’gar District Nguyen Cong Van stated that because of information on local investment projects, land prices in these areas have increased by nearly 3 times. This means a real challenge to native farmers with a real need for cultivation land. Furthermore, this price bubble may threaten investment opportunities as land clearance compensation will be unacceptably high.
Similar cases can be found in the Southeast region of Vietnam. Agricultural land purchases are increasingly conducted in Dong Nai Province, harming the establishment of concentrated specialized cultivation areas, Chairman of Lam San Commune Farmer Association Truong Dinh Ba sadly informed that in 2018, the project ‘Large Field’ in this commune was planned on an 847.5-hectare site for 771 households to grow pepper.
Then came the land fever, making 70 households sell their 100-hectare lots to land merchants, pitifully wasting the land resource since these merchants do nothing to the lots but waiting for a profitable price to sell out.
In Binh Phuoc Province, merchants cunningly divide land into lots of 1,000m2 to bypass the law and sell agricultural land lots at the price of VND1.5-2 billion ($65,500-87,300) per hectare, an increase by 6 times compared to two years ago.
In Binh Duong Province, after the news of establishing Tan Uyen City and Ben Cat City, the land prices in these areas have witnessed a rise of 5-10 percent.
In Xuan Loc District of Dong Nai Province, where Dau Giay – Phan Thiet Expressway will pass by, the land fever has made land price grow by 4-5 times compared to last year, just like the situation of the neighborhoods of renowned infrastructure projects of Long Thanh International Airport, Bien Hoa – Vung Tau Expressway, Phuoc An Port, Cat Lai Bridge.
