Determining Name Registered as Having "Land Rights Use"

I'm praying there's an alternative to dealing with the UBND office (again). Not a "pleasant experience" I wish to repeat. Last visit, my patience was stretched (not broken, but certainly stretched)

Is a lawyer in VN able to do the Western equivalent of a "title search"?

Hi Aiden,

I'd recommend to get a real estate broker or agency in phu quoc to help you.

They know how and where to deal with all those matters.

You might have to pay some fees if you ask them to look into some specific property, but maybe they would even simply work on getting a commission from the owner, in case they manage to close the deal.

However, I would always have any paper work, documents, contracts etc reviewed by another, trusted lawyer, to make sure you don't get ripped off!

    Anyone know where one would go to determine the name of the registered land rights user for a property in Vietnam?
Is there a registry in each province, or is it down to the district level? Or...?
Though my inquiry is regarding a piece of property I'm interested in on Phu Quoc Island (now T.P. Phu Quoc), Kien Giang, I'm posting this to the VN general page as I'm thinking the information will be helpful to others looking at property throughout VN. And yes, I'm aware of the limitations on what a foreigner can/cannot have registered in their name. The property I'm looking at, in the event that I purchase, will be registered in the name of a VN citizen.
   

    -@Aidan in HCMC

I would ask the Vietnamese citizen to inquire at the local police without mentioning it's being done on your behalf.

If that doesn't work, check with the local committee.

So, just got back from the village representative(?). He's the one I've seen accompany police to a villager's address, settled small disputes between neighbours, etc.  Unfortunately, not much help, except to tell my GF that when he was a boy(!) the land was being farmed by "old man Nguyen Minh", but since then it's been sold a couple of times and laid barren. He has no access to property records.

Next stop was the police station, where GF has two acquaintances. Guess where they told us to go. Hell!(actually, the UBND office. to me they're synonymous).

Next step, I'll be going the property sales agent  route, but only after getting a quote for the cost.

My wife and I just went through the process of buying a property in Saigon. I can say we had to go through 6 months and a lot of crap to find something without red flags and problems. We hired an attourney that was recomended by our current landlord to help with everything. Worth every penny. The police station was 0 help at all and we slipped them way too much money to be told basically nothing. I may be wrong but we were not aware of any database thats searchable. I think the 2 entities that helped the most was the attourney and the notorizer. So weird but the notorizer actually did a lot of the title search work and found issues with properties we looked at. There are so many things that could go wrong. Maybe the seller has a completley fake red book. Maybe the seller really owns the property and the redbook is in their name but they inherrited it and the rest of the family is disputing it (this seems really common). Maybe the seller still has a loan that you dont find out about until your signing papers lol. Everything is so fuzzy. Even native Vietnamese get screwed over all the time apparently.

    My wife and I just went through the process of buying a property in Saigon. I can say we had to go through 6 months and a lot of crap to find something without red flags and problems. We hired an attourney that was recomended by our current landlord to help with everything. Worth every penny. The police station was 0 help at all and we slipped them way too much money to be told basically nothing. I may be wrong but we were not aware of any database thats searchable. I think the 2 entities that helped the most was the attourney and the notorizer. So weird but the notorizer actually did a lot of the title search work and found issues with properties we looked at. There are so many things that could go wrong. Maybe the seller has a completley fake red book. Maybe the seller really owns the property and the redbook is in their name but they inherrited it and the rest of the family is disputing it (this seems really common). Maybe the seller still has a loan that you dont find out about until your signing papers lol. Everything is so fuzzy. Even native Vietnamese get screwed over all the time apparently.
   
    -@jrharvey

Noted, literally. Thank you for that.

So, contacted two property sales companies a couple of days ago.

The first took my (GF's) # with a promise to call back.

The second took the time to discuss (good English) the trouble to do what I wanted, i.e. notice of clear title/ownership of the property. As member jrharvey stated above, there are many potential issues which could throw a monkey wrench into the works. I was quoted $1,500 USD for a certificate of ownership of the property's LRU. I thanked them for their time, and told them I'd have to think a bit more about this. The agent did not ask for my number, and told me to give them a call back should I decide to proceed. My concern here is that, after spending the $1,500 USD, I discover that the registered LRU owner is not the chap trying to sell the property(!).

My GF has answered (and blocked) at least 30 calls over the past two or three days from sales agents wanting to sell me various pieces of property, none of which are anywhere near the lot I am (was) interested in. I assume that the first contact passed my number on to hopeful agents. Yeah, thanks for that.

I've been presented with a very generous alternative which I'll update the forum on, when/if it comes to fruition, soon.