Risk of losing land and house due to authorization contract

Mrs. Tram and her son have sent petitions to many agencies.

According to the presentation of Ms. Do Thi Tram (78 years old, in Uong Ha village, Minh Tan commune, Nam Sach), due to her old age and poor health, she wanted to transfer the right to use the 315 m2 land plot she was living on to her daughter, Ms. Vuong Thi Cham (40 years old). Ms. Cham knew Mr. Mai Xuan Quang (38 years old, in Quang Trung ward, Hai Duong city). Because of trust, Ms. Tram and her daughter asked Mr. Quang to do the procedures to transfer the land use rights. To carry out the above work, on June 25, 2020, at Bui Van Han Notary Office in Tran Hung Dao ward (Hai Duong city), Ms. Tram signed a contract authorizing Mr. Quang to carry out legal procedures, including the content of management, use, transfer, donation, lease, lending, mortgage, etc.

Ms. Tram said that after many times urging him to do the procedures to transfer the land title, Mr. Quang kept delaying and did not respond. Her family checked the information and discovered that Mr. Quang had transferred the land to someone else. Mr. Quang then said that the transfer was to deduct the 650 million VND that Ms. Tram borrowed from Mr. Quang.

Working with reporters, Ms. Tram and her daughter said that Ms. Tram signed a power of attorney contract, but due to lack of legal knowledge and not carefully studying the contents of the contract. From June 22, 2020 to March 28, 2021, Ms. Cham borrowed from Mr. Quang many times a total of 100 million VND, with an agreed interest rate of 1,000 VND/million/day. Later, Mr. Quang increased the interest. According to Ms. Cham, after 2 payments of a total of 130 million VND, she only owed Mr. Quang 34 million VND, not 650 million VND. However, the borrowing and repayment of money did not have documents proving the loans and interest rates, but only verbal agreements between the two people.

Similar to Mrs. Tram and her son, Mr. Dinh Van Phuc in Quang Trung Ward (Hai Duong City) also borrowed money from Mr. Quang and signed a contract authorizing him to carry out tasks related to land use rights and assets attached to his family's land at 26 Han Giang, Quang Trung Ward. When Mr. Phuc completed the procedures to sell his house to another person, he discovered that his land and house had been authorized to Mr. Quang and Mr. Quang sent him a receipt stating that Mr. Phuc received 1.2 billion VND from the sale of his house to Mr. Quang. Because he was unable to pay the 300 million VND loan from Mr. Quang; the deposit, compensation for the home buyer; and was worried about violating the law by selling a plot of land to 2 people, Mr. Phuc had to pay Mr. Quang over 1 billion VND so that Mr. Quang could complete the procedures to terminate the authorization contract.

According to Mr. Phuc, when borrowing 300 million VND from Mr. Quang, both parties also went to Bui Van Han Notary Office to sign the property loan contract. His signature on the authorization contract may have been because Mr. Quang mixed it with the documents in the loan file and Mr. Phuc did not notice and signed it. Regarding the receipt for the amount of 1.2 billion VND from selling the house, Mr. Phuc said that he only borrowed 15 million VND from Mr. Quang and signed it to confirm, and the time of signing the document, the content of selling the house and receiving 1.2 billion VND was written by Mr. Quang later. This needs to be clarified whether it is true or not.

The reporter contacted Mr. Quang to get more information to clarify the case, but he replied that he was not in Hai Duong City so he could not meet him. According to the reporter's investigation, both cases above admitted to signing authorization contracts related to their land use rights for Mr. Quang, in which Mr. Phuc admitted to signing a receipt for the house sale; Ms. Tram said that she signed a receipt given by Mr. Quang with unknown content. There are many unusual points in the case. That is, the borrowing of money between Mr. Quang and Ms. Cham and Mr. Phuc did not clearly state the interest rate and there was no confirmation of each borrowing and repayment. If Ms. Tram and Mr. Phuc really intended to sell the land and house to Mr. Quang, why did the parties not sign a transfer contract but instead execute an authorization contract which has more legal risks? The time the authorization contracts were established was not far from the time of borrowing money; At this time, the principal and interest have not increased too high, making it unconvincing that the borrower must sell land and houses with a value many times higher than the loan amount to repay the debt. The transfer of land use rights (if any) between Ms. Tram and Mr. Quang also does not show the transfer of assets on the land, including the house where she and her children are living. In particular, if Mr. Phuc intended and sold the land to Mr. Quang, why did he continue to carry out the procedures to sell the land to another person, causing legal trouble, property damage to himself and possibly committing a criminal offense. The fact that both plots of land above are under the name of the land use rights holder (Ms. Tram and Mr. Phuc) also makes it possible for loopholes to be easily exploited when signing and executing authorization contracts...

According to lawyer Nguyen Kieu Dong, Chairman of the Provincial Bar Association, in this case, if Ms. Tram and Mr. Phuc believe that the authorization contract was signed illegally and not in accordance with their own will, they need to have evidence to prove it and request the competent authority to resolve the dispute according to the provisions of law.

It can be seen that the above case is not simply a civil dispute over the transfer of real estate but has many unclear manifestations, with signs of being related to "black credit" activities. Ms. Tram and Mr. Phuc's family have sent a petition to many agencies in the province, including the Provincial People's Procuracy, the Office of the Provincial Police Investigation Agency, and the Hai Duong City Police.

Hao Nhien