Spontaneous Residential Settlements Emerging on Encroached Land

The Internal Political Department of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee has recently issued an official dispatch, transferring the case file related to the encroached land in Tan Khanh Ward, owned by Mr. Truong Minh Ky (born in 1969), to the City Police for resolution.

According to Mr. Truong Minh Ky’s account, his 6,465 square meter plot of land (formerly located in Tan Uyen City, Binh Duong Province) has been illegally occupied by Mr. Le Van Hoang (born in 1969) and Ms. Nguyen Thi Ut (born in 1976) since 2017. Mr. Ky has proven his ownership of the land through a certificate issued in 1999, further confirmed by a first-instance administrative judgment in 2022 and an appellate judgment in 2023.

Despite a December 2019 decision by the Tan Uyen City People’s Court imposing an emergency measure to prohibit any changes to the land’s status quo, Mr. Hoang and Ms. Ut continued to level and construct on the land. By November 2023, the Tan Uyen City People’s Court recorded 48 illegal structures on the disputed land, including multi-story houses and dormitory rows, forming an unauthorized residential area.

In the civil case, during the first-instance trial on July 23, 2024, the Tan Uyen City People’s Court ordered the defendants to demolish the structures and return the land. However, due to appeals from Mr. Hoang and 71 related parties, the appellate court overturned the first-instance judgment for further investigation.

Notably, the appellate civil judgment, issued the same year, concluded that Mr. Hoang’s actions showed signs of fraud and asset misappropriation, violating land use regulations and failing to comply with court orders.

Based on these findings, on February 28, 2025, the Tan Uyen City People’s Court (now the District 17 People’s Court of Ho Chi Minh City) recommended the initiation of a criminal case. Currently, the Ho Chi Minh City Police Investigation Agency is collaborating with relevant units to address the case, as stated in the dispatch from the Internal Political Department of the City Party Committee.

The prolonged dispute has left Mr. Truong Minh Ky’s family both frustrated and anxious. Mr. Ky revealed that he has been physically assaulted and constantly fears passing through his own land.

The fallout from this case has also left many homebuyers from Mr. Hoang and Ms. Ut in a precarious situation, risking significant financial loss. The illegally constructed houses were sold for prices ranging from 800 million to 1.7 billion VND per unit. Mr. Q., who purchased a house for 1 billion VND, expressed distress over the potential loss of his investment.