Is it permissible to buy and sell land without a land use right certificate?

Conditions for transferring land under the Land Law:
Clause 1, Article 45 of the 2024 Land Law stipulates the conditions for transferring land use rights as follows:

Article 45. Conditions for exercising the rights to exchange, transfer, lease, sublease, inherit, donate land use rights; mortgage, contribute land use rights as capital; receive transfer, receive donation of land use rights

1. Land users may exercise the rights to exchange, transfer, lease, sublease, inherit, donate land use rights; mortgage, contribute land use rights as capital when fully meeting the following conditions:

a) Having a Certificate of Land Use Rights or a Certificate of House Ownership and Residential Land Use Rights or a Certificate of Land Use Rights, House Ownership and Other Assets Attached to Land or a Certificate of Land Use Rights, Ownership of Assets Attached to Land, except for the case of inheriting land use rights, exchanging agricultural land when consolidating and exchanging plots, donating land use rights to the State, the community, and the cases specified in Clause 7 Article 124 and Point a Clause 4 Article 127 of this Law;

b) The land has no dispute or the dispute has been resolved by a competent State agency, a legally effective court judgment or decision, or a legally effective arbitral decision or award;

c) The land use rights are not seized or subject to other measures to secure enforcement of judgments according to the law on civil judgment enforcement;

d) Within the land use term;

đ) The land use rights are not subject to provisional urgent measures as prescribed by law.

Accordingly, one of the conditions for the owner of land use rights to exercise the right to transfer land use rights is that the land parcel must have been issued a Certificate (except for the case of inheriting land use rights, exchanging agricultural land when consolidating and exchanging plots, donating land use rights to the State, the community, and the cases specified in Clause 7 Article 124 and Point a Clause 4 Article 127 of the 2024 Land Law).

If violated, the person transferring land use rights without having been issued a Certificate may be sanctioned according to Point c, Clause 3, Article 17 of Decree 123/2024/NĐ-CP, specifically as follows:

Article 17. Transfer, lease, sublease, mortgage land use rights without meeting conditions as prescribed

[…]
3. Acts of transferring, leasing, subleasing, inheriting, donating land use rights; mortgaging, contributing land use rights as capital without meeting one of the conditions prescribed in Clause 1 Article 45 of the Land Law shall be subject to the following forms and levels of sanction:

[…]
c) A fine from VND 30,000,000 to VND 50,000,000 for the act of transferring or contributing land use rights as capital.

In addition, this violation shall be subject to the following remedial measures:

4. Remedial measures:

a) Compelling the transferee, lessee, sub-lessee to return the land to the transferor, lessor, sub-lessor, except for the cases specified at Points d and đ of this Clause;

[…]
d) Compelling land registration for cases eligible for issuance of the Certificate of Land Use Rights and Ownership of Assets Attached to Land according to regulations;

đ) Compelling land registration for cases where the land cannot be returned because the transferor is an organization that has been dissolved or bankrupt, or an individual who has died without heirs or has moved to another place and the commune-level People’s Committee where the land is located confirms that at the time of detecting the violation the address cannot be determined and the case is not subject to land recovery according to Articles 81 and 82 of the Land Law. The transferee must implement remedial measures for consequences caused by the transferor’s violation before continuing to transfer the land use rights.