In case a wife transfers common land without her husband's signature, the contract is still valid in Vietnam.

Typically in Judgment 60/2019/DS-PT dated August 7, 2019 on a dispute over a land use right transfer contract, whereby:

“Plaintiff Mr. Mang P claims that the area of ​​7,488m2 of land in plot No. 12, map sheet No. 30, located in M ​​quarter, MN ward, PT city, is the common property of Mr. and Mrs. Mang P. Mrs. Nguyen Thi T. In 1989, Ms. T arbitrarily transferred the above-mentioned land area to Mr. Nguyen Van C, Mr. P and his children did not know. It wasn't until 2000, that Mr. P knew and complaints and disputes occurred. The plaintiff filed a lawsuit to request the cancellation of the land use right transfer transaction between Ms. T and Mr. C;”

 Mr. C and Mrs. M said that: In 1989, they received the transfer of the right to use 3,000m2 of land from Mrs. T and Mr. P. After that, during the process of management and use, he and she discovered an additional 4,488m2 of land into a large piece of land. 7.488m2 as the present. When the two sides transferred land, Mr. P knew because Mr. P was the one who gave Mr. C the Certificate of Ownership issued by the old regime. The two parties have made a handwritten document called a "land return paper" to record the transaction. Ms. T has signed the paper and Mr. L is Mr. P's son. Ms. T writes and signs for Mr. P on this paper. Therefore, you do not agree with the petitioner's petition."

The trial panel said: Immediately after receiving the transfer in 1989, Mr. C cut down all the coconut trees on the land, in 1990, Mr. C's family built a permanent house and built an anchovy oven on this land for business. Meanwhile, the distance from this land to Mr. P's house is not far. Therefore, the plaintiff's testimony that Mr. P did not know that Ms. T transferred the land to Mr. C was groundless accepted. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the land transfer between Ms. T and Mr. C, Mr. P knows and does not have any objections. By the time of the dispute in 2002, it was more than 10 years. In addition, Ms. T also admitted that the money from the sale of land she had used for family expenses. Therefore, based on precedent No. 04/2016/AL approved by the Council of Judges of the Supreme People's Court and announced on April 6, 2016, it is necessary to determine that Mr. P "agrees with the transfer of land use rights" of Ms. T.

Since then, the Trial Panel decided: Not to accept the plaintiff's entire claim on canceling the land use right transfer transaction between Ms. Nguyen Thi T and Mr. Nguyen Van C on August 4, 1989...

Compare with the overview of Precedent No. 04/2016/AL with the following content:

“In case the house and land are the common property of husband and wife, but only one person signs the contract to transfer that house and land to another person, the other person does not sign the contract; if there are sufficient grounds to determine that the transferor has received the full amount of money as agreed, the person who did not sign the contract knows and jointly uses the money from the house and land transfer; the transferee has received and managed and used such land and land publicly; If the person who does not sign the contract knows that but has no objection, it must be determined that he or she agrees to the transfer of the house and land.”

The fact that the precedent specifically stipulates the conditions for determining that the spouse knows without objection is: that person knows and jointly uses the transferred amount, which has avoided the fact that either of the spouses transfers themselves for personal consumption that the other person does not know. This avoids causing damage to the person who is completely unaware of the transfer of his or her spouse.

In addition, the provisions of this precedent have helped protect the transferee in the event that the transferor intentionally appoints only one of the spouses to act and sign, while the other party does not sign but still spends the money received from the transfer. And then it is possible that when there are more economic conditions and higher housing prices, they turn back to ask for the declaration of the contract to be void because there is no full signature of both husband and wife.

In conclusion, it can be seen that not every joint property of husband and wife is required to have the full signatures of both husband and wife in the transfer contract. In case the spouse knows about the other party's transaction but has no objection and jointly uses the money from the house transfer, the transfer will still have a legal effect even though the transferred property is the family's sole property.

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