04 NEW PRECEDENTS OF CIVIL DISPUTE RESOLUTIONS THAT APPLICABLE FROM 01/02/2022
The Council of Judges of the Supreme People’s Court approved 09 new precedents, of which there were 04 civil cases, including:
(i) Precedent no. 44/2021/AL on determining the statute of limitations for initiating a lawsuit for counterclaims; specifically, “The counterclaim is also a petition to initiate a lawsuit, so it must comply with the regulations on the statute of limitations for initiating a lawsuit. Therefore, in case there is a counter-claim and a litigant in the case proposes to apply the statute of limitations for initiating a lawsuit, the first-instance court, and the appellate court must determine whether the counter-claim still has the statute of limitations for initiating a lawsuit or not in accordance with the law”.
(ii) Precedent no. 50/2021/AL on the right to initiate a lawsuit to reclaim the property which assigned according to a legally effective judgment or decision; specifically, “The court may not re-resolve the relationship of land use rights determined in a previous judgment, but reclaiming the property is a different legal relationship. If there is still a statute of limitations for judgment enforcement, the plaintiff has the right to request the judgment enforcement agency to coerce the allocation of land. However, the statute of limitations for requesting judgment enforcement in this precedent has expired, thus the plaintiff has the right to initiate a lawsuit for property reclaiming with a new civil case. In this case, if there are no grounds to determine that the plaintiff has renounced the property rights, the plaintiff’s petition for lawsuit must be accepted.”
(iii) Precedent no. 51/2021/AL on determining the ownership of the car parking area of the apartment building; specifically,“[…] the area under common ownership of apartment residents are places for parking of bicycles, vehicles for the disabled and two-wheeled motor vehicles. Particularly for the car parking area in the basement, it is decided by the investor to be under joint or separate ownership of the apartment building owner. According to the Apartment Sale Contract, the car parking space in the basement is not allocated to the selling price of the apartment, so it is determined to be the private property of the apartment investor.”
(iv) Precedent no. 52/2021/AL on the validity of contracts for a donation of land use rights without registration of land use rights. Specifically as follows: “When re-trial of the case, if the contract for a donation of land use rights is established with all necessary and sufficient conditions listed below, the validity of the contract must be recognized; those conditions are: (a) The contract has satisfied the conditions prescribed by law on the right to donate land use rights; (b) Until death, the donor of the property has no document to replace the previous contract of donation of the property and no action to show the change of will expressed in the signed contract of property donation; (c) the recipient of the property is unable to register the property (land use right) by objective obstacles in administrative procedures (or other objective obstacles), but not due to the giver’s will.”
Decision 594/QD-CA takes effect from December 31, 2021.