“The Court Rules on a Case Involving a ‘Resurrected’ Grandfather and a Land Donation in Quang Binh”

In this case, the plaintiff, Mr. Duong Minh Luyen (DOB: 1960), requested the court to declare null and void a contract for the gift of land use rights between his parents, Mr. Duong Lai (deceased in 1980) and Mrs. Pham Thi Dieu (deceased in 2015), and their granddaughter and her husband, Nguyen Thai Lam and Duong Thi Ha.

The gift contract was signed on October 17, 2006, and certified by the People’s Committee of Quang Xuan Commune. However, according to Mr. Luyen, the contract is forged because his father passed away 26 years before the signing, and his mother was illiterate.

The court determined that the land gift contract bore signatures that did not reflect the reality, as one of the signatories had passed away, and the other was illiterate. The court declared the contract invalid per the provisions of Article 122 of the Civil Code.

The court recommended that the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Quang Binh Province and the People’s Committee of Quang Trach District revoke three land use right certificates issued to Mr. Lam and Mrs. Ha in 2007, 2011, and 2020, as they were based on the invalid contract.

The court ordered Mr. Nguyen Thai Lam and Mrs. Duong Thi Ha to return the land lot number 269, sheet number 7, with an area of 360 square meters in Thanh Binh village, Quang Xuan commune, Quang Trach district, to the rightful heirs of Mr. Duong Lai and Mrs. Pham Thi Dieu.

As previously reported by Tien Phong , Mr. Duong Lai (DOB: 1917 – 1980) and his wife, Mrs. Pham Thi Dieu (DOB: 1925 – 2015), once lived on a land lot of over 360 square meters in Hamlet 3, Thanh Binh village, Quang Xuan commune. The couple had five children (three sons and two daughters), all of whom left their hometown to pursue their careers.

In 2005, their granddaughter’s husband, Mr. Nguyen Thai Lam (DOB: 1975), and his wife, Mrs. Duong Thi Ha (DOB: 1976), returned to their grandparents’ house due to financial difficulties. As Mr. Lai had already passed away, Mrs. Dieu allowed them to stay and set up a carpentry workshop on the land.

Taking advantage of Mrs. Dieu’s old age and failing memory, in 2006, the couple fraudulently obtained Mrs. Pham Thi Dieu’s land use certificate and forged the signatures of Mr. Lai (who had passed away) and Mrs. Dieu (who was illiterate) on a contract to gift the land lot, which was the ancestral land of the Duong family.

In 2015, after Mrs. Dieu’s passing, when the family gathered to discuss renovating the house for ancestral worship, they were shocked to discover that the entire ancestral land of the Duong family had been registered under the name of their granddaughter’s husband, Nguyen Thai Lam.

According to Mr. Duong Minh Luyen, the family held a meeting and agreed to let Mr. Lam and Mrs. Ha keep the portion of land on which they had already built a house. However, the couple refused to accept this decision, forcing Mr. Luyen to file a lawsuit.