Villa owners sue Phu Quoc chairman for forced demolitions

The chairman of Phu Quoc Island City has appealed against a court’s decision which ruled that the city authorities violated regulations when dismantling two illegal villas on the island.

Chairman Huynh Quang Hung announced Thursday that he has asked the People’s Supreme Court in Ho Chi Minh City to reject a previous decision made by the People’s Court in Kien Giang Province, home to Phu Quoc Island.

The Kien Giang court ruled last month that chairman Hung violated regulations on coercive demolitions of illegally construction projects when deciding to take down two villas owned by Vu Dinh Khanh and Le Xuan Hong.

Khanh and Hong sued the chairman of Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s largest island, for causing them asset losses when dismantling villas against the rules.

Kien Giang authorities deployed a team to inspect the encroachment of public and forest land on Phu Quoc Island back in early 2022.

The inspectors later discovered 2,300 violations, including illegal building of 79 villas, including those of Hong and Khanh.

As decided by the province, Phu Quoc had to take down those illegal villas.

According to the verdict, Khanh and Hong had built their villas on land bought via hand-written papers only as the former owners of the land did not have official ownership certificates.

Inspectors ruled that they have encroached public agricultural land.

The two men were fined VND7.5 million (US$308) each and forced to return the land to the authorities.

Phu Quoc City on October 31 last year issued a decision requesting the two to take down the villas within 10 days.

However, the city’s authorities sent forces and cranes to demolish the two villas.

The city explained that the two owners did not take down the two villas on their own so the city must coerce them.

However, as ruled by the Kien Giang Province’s Court, the city had implemented the coercive demolition one day sooner than the deadline given to the two owners.

The jury said all the assets of the villas built on the land legally belonged to the two owners and the city had destroyed them, causing losses for the owners.

In addition, Phu Quoc City did not follow the rule of coercive demolition when giving the two owners only 10 days. As per existing regulations, the period given must be at least 15 days, it said.

By Ngoc Tai – VnExpress.net – September 29, 2023