Wrongly paid more than 5 billion VND for 1 square meter of rural land

In early March, in An Dong commune, Quynh Phu district (Thai Binh), an auction of 3 land lots took place. Here, Mr. PVT (residing in Vu Xa village, An Dong commune) participated in the auction of 2 land lots marked 01 and 02.

After counting the votes, Mr. PVT paid more than 5.8 billion VND/m2 for land lot number 01 (starting price more than 15 million VND/m2). In addition, Mr. T. also paid more than 5.2 billion VND/m2 for land lot number 02 (starting price more than 13 million VND/m2).

Based on the total area of ​​the two plots of land, Mr. T. had to pay more than 1,400 billion VND to own them.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Nhuong, Director of the Center for Land Fund Development and Industrial Clusters of Quynh Phu district, said that before participating in the auction, Mr. T. deposited 800 million VND for 2 plots of land.

Mr. T. then explained that he made a mistake during the auction when he mistakenly recorded more than 5 billion VND for the entire land lot as the price for 1 square meter of land.

"According to the auction regulations and the Law on Property Auction, when checking, any incorrect auction form will be considered invalid. In Mr. T's case, after checking, it was found that his auction form was valid, so if he did not carry it out, he would lose his previous deposit of 800 million VND," said Mr. Nhuong.

This is not the first time there has been a "mistake" in paying billions of dong for 1 square meter of auctioned land.

Previously, in December 2023, the People's Committee of Me Linh District (Hanoi) opened an auction for a number of land lots in the district. Here, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tung paid 4.28 billion VND/m2 for a 102 m2 plot of land in Tien Thinh Commune, 142 times higher than the starting price, becoming the auction winner.

However, Mr. Tung later withdrew his deposit because the first auction was "stressful" and he "made a mistake".

Next, Mr. Tung submitted a request to the People's Committee of Me Linh district to consider returning the deposit for the land plot due to a mistake when paying the price.

Under the direction of the District People's Committee, the Me Linh District Land Fund Development Center worked with Mr. Tung and verified the content of the application.

Verification shows that Mr. Tung has a good background, is a freelancer, does not speculate on land, but auctions the above land plot for residence.

Regarding his personal situation, Mr. Tung has two young children and the whole family is living with his mother. The deposit is large, up to more than 600 million VND, so Mr. Tung could not have intentionally abandoned the deposit.

The Me Linh District Land Fund Development Center added that Mr. Tung and his wife have not registered their names as owners of any land plots in the district, so there is no sign of intentionally paying a high price and then forfeiting the deposit to raise the land price in the area for profit.

After that, the District People's Committee agreed and assigned the center to coordinate with the auction company and Mr. Tung to carry out the procedures to cancel the auction results and complete the documents to return the deposit to Mr. Tung.

In what cases can auction results be canceled?

In the case of Mr. PVT in Thai Binh, will he be refunded the 800 million VND he previously deposited?

Lawyer Nguyen Van Dinh, a real estate legal expert, said that both Mr. Tung and Mr. PVT may have mistaken the land unit price (calculated in VND/m2) with the total price of the land plot (calculated in VND). That is, the auctioneer may have bid on the entire land plot in terms of will, but the information on the bidding form required participants to bid by m2, so the auctioneer should have divided the total amount/total area (million VND/m2) to fill in the form.

Mr. Dinh said that to have an accurate assessment of the incident, it is necessary to specifically consider the actual bids at the auction.

Citing the provisions of Article 72 of the 2016 Law on Property Auctions, which stipulates cases of canceling property auction results, according to Mr. Dinh, there is no case that directly applies to the case where the auction winner mistakenly records the total amount for the entire land lot as the price for 1 square meter of land.

According to the expert, in this case, Mr. PVT can base on the provisions of Clause 1, Article 72 of the Law on Property Auction on the cancellation of property auction results "according to the agreement between the person with the auctioned property, the property auction organization and the auction winner on the cancellation of the property auction results..."

In addition, Article 126 of the 2015 Civil Code stipulates: In case a civil transaction is established with a mistake that causes one or more parties to fail to achieve the purpose of establishing the transaction, the mistaken party has the right to request the court to declare the civil transaction invalid... Thus, if he believes that he has been mistaken, to protect his legitimate rights and interests, Mr. PVT can request the court to resolve the matter.

In fact, in Mr. Tung's case, through the verification process, the People's Committee of Me Linh district and the District Land Fund Development Center canceled the auction results without waiting for Mr. Tung to file a lawsuit in court.

It is known that Mr. PVT filed a complaint after participating in a land auction in An Dong commune at a price of more than 5 billion VND/m2.

Mr. Tran Duc Thanh, Chairman of the People's Committee of Quynh Phu district, said that the government has assigned the Center for Land Fund Development and Industrial Cluster of Quynh Phu district and the Auction Center to verify and handle the case according to the law.