Ca Mau's Department of Agriculture and Environment reported 901 land applications processed late, along with shortcomings in guidance for applicants, coordination between agencies and monitoring of processing progress.
From July 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026, eight regional branches of the land registration office received 91,446 applications and processed 85,331 of them.
Applications processed early or on time accounted for 98.94% of the total. Another 901 applications were processed late. The Bac Lieu branch accounted for 442 of them, Hoa Binh for 275 and Vinh Loi for 176. A further 3,734 applications were still within the legal processing period.
The department said cadastral records had been created over different periods, so information in archived documents, land certificates and electronic databases was sometimes inconsistent. Checking the land origin, area and boundaries can therefore take considerable time.
Some units also have fewer staff than their workload requires, while information exchanges with tax authorities have occasionally been interrupted.
The report said that some units did not regularly monitor applications or remind responsible staff about deadlines, and that responsibilities at individual stages were not assigned clearly enough.
At some intake stages, applicants received incomplete or inconsistent guidance, and staff did not explain from the start which documents needed to be added. As a result, applications had to be completed several times, increasing processing times and applicants' travel costs.
The eight branches recorded 4,843 applications that required additional or corrected documents. The department ordered an analysis of each case and called for better guidance at the intake stage.
In some cases, coordination between commune-level authorities, land registration branches, intake units and tax authorities was neither timely nor coordinated. Responsibility for monitoring applications moving between agencies was sometimes unclear, creating waiting time between stages.
To address the problem, the department ordered a review of every overdue application, including its cause, the responsible agency or staff member and the deadline for completion. Overdue applications that remain unresolved are to be handled as a priority in the fourth quarter of 2026.
For applications involving financial obligations, officials must clarify which stage each case has reached, when information was transferred, whether it was received, what response was given and which agency is responsible for the next step.
Ca Mau's Department of Agriculture and Environment also asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment to study changes to the way administrative processing periods are calculated. It proposed counting the time needed to determine financial obligations, publicly notify the loss of a land certificate and coordinate between the agencies involved.
It also called for specific time limits for each stage and clear coordination responsibilities so that agencies can monitor and assess applications consistently and transparently.
The department ordered officials to identify the responsibility of agency heads and staff handling applications, monitor the results of corrective action and issue apologies, as required, for overdue land applications.
Sources: Thanh Niên
