Judicial Remedies for Void Transfers of Land Use Rights in Vietnam: An Empirical Study

When Vietnamese courts declare a transfer of land use rights void, Article 131 of the 2015 Civil Code mandates restitution and compensation for damage by the party at fault, yet provides limited guidance on quantifying these obligations. This article analyzes judicial remedies for void transfers, utilizing 58 coded disputes decided between 2018 and 2025. The datasets includes a purposive sample of 39 judgments, featuring three clusters of disputes over serviced plots in unfinished real estate projects, and a systematic sample of 19 appellate judgments from the official court portal. Where restoration of an existing land use right was feasible, courts ordered restitution in kind, even if the land had been resold or developed. In serviced-plot cases, buyers did not receive the plots; instead, they recovered their payments, with interest-based damages awarded in two clusters. Although valuations were conducted in some cases, these were not used to determine awards. In general transfers, fault determined how the difference between the contract price and the land’s assessed value was allocated. In serviced-plot cases, fault was present in every interest-based award. This article contends that the remedial divide is more closely associated with the legal status of the land right than with practical difficulties of restitution. It offers guidance on the valuation date, the distinction between interest on restituted money and compensatory damages, and the proof and allocation of loss under Article 131(4).