Can land transferred to someone else be taken back? If the village committee has occupied it, here's how to defend your rights quickly

In recent years, with the in-depth implementation of the central government's policies of "supporting agriculture and benefiting farmers," farmers have shown great enthusiasm for agricultural production, and consequently, a large number of agricultural land contract cases have emerged. Today, we continue to share several legal questions about land.

1. A listener with the phone number ending in 7865 asks: My family's land was forcibly used by the village committee to build a road, and I cannot farm it for 30 years. In our area, land is redistributed every 30 years, the village committee gives no compensation at all, and forcibly refuses to give us land. What should I do?

Chen Liang:Lawyer at Beijing Yijia Law Firm

First of all, if the village wants to build a road, according to normal procedures, the village committee should hold a meeting to discuss and approve it and seek the villagers' opinions. The village committee has no right to forcibly occupy villagers' contracted land.

If you encounter such a situation, you can sue the village committee on the grounds of damaging the household contracted management right and requesting compensation.

2. Two villagers signed a house sale contract ten years ago, agreeing that: Party A sells the house to Party B for a price of 43,000 yuan. The two parties also agreed that "Party A shall hand over the land it has contracted to Party B for cultivation, and if higher authorities adjust the land, it shall be handled according to the higher authorities' policies." Now Party A demands the return of its land. Should this be supported?

The legal characterization of "Party A shall hand over the land it has contracted to Party B for cultivation" should be that Party A subleases the land to Party B (if Party B does not belong to the collective economic organization where Party A is located, then it is a lease), with a sublease fee (lease fee) of zero. (The reason for this is presumably that Party B purchased Party A's house.) Although the terms of the land contracted management right transfer contract are stipulated in the house sale contract, as long as they represent the true intention of both parties and do not violate the provisions of the law, they are legal and valid. According to the provisions of the Contract Law, after a contract concluded by both parties takes effect, both parties are bound by it, and it may not be arbitrarily terminated without an agreed or statutory reason.

How should the agreement between the two parties that "if higher authorities adjust the land, it shall be handled according to the higher authorities' policies" be understood?

Practice shows that the state has elevated the rural land contracted management right system from policy to law, further stabilizing rural contracting relationships, and has continuously given farmers preferential treatment in taxation and other policies. After the second round of contracting, there has basically been no re-contracting or adjustment of land. It can be seen that there has been no change in national land policy that would make the contract between Party A and Party B impossible to perform. In this sense, Party A's request to terminate the contract cannot be supported. However, because the sublease fee is zero, according to Article 16 of the Interpretation: "Where a dispute arises from an agreement that the contractor does not collect a transfer price or pays fees to the other party, the parties cannot reach an agreement through negotiation to modify it, and continued performance is obviously unfair, the people's court may handle it according to the principle of fairness based on the objective circumstances of the change." Therefore, Party A may be advised to request an appropriate increase in the sublease fee, and the people's court may provide appropriate protection based on the objective facts. It should also be noted that if the contract between the two parties continues indefinitely, it would be clearly unfair to Party A, because Party A would permanently lose control over the land, which is its guarantee for survival. The people's court may, based on the specific circumstances of the individual case, such as in this case where the two parties did not agree on the transfer period, handle it according to Article 17 of the Interpretation by referring to Article 232 of the Contract Law, that is, Party A may terminate the contract, but must notify Party B within a reasonable period in advance.

3. After a villager whose household is registered in the village but who does not live there was allocated land, the village committee contracted it out to a third party for many years, and the third party paid contract fees that the village committee spent entirely. Now, can the original land allottee's request to revoke the land contract signed between the village committee and the third party be supported? Should the original land allottee compensate the third party for losses caused by rushing to plant crops on the land contracted by the third party?

The Rural Land Contracting Law further grants farmers' contracted management right the nature of a real right. A party that unlawfully takes back or adjusts contracted land in violation of the law infringes upon a statutory real right, and the holder of the land contracted management right may seek legal protection as the holder of a real right. Regardless of whether the infringer, namely the contracting party, has already contracted the land out to another person, the holder of the land contracted management right's request for the return of the land should be supported. Article 6 of the Supreme People's Court Interpretation provides more operational rules for handling such disputes: "Where a dispute arises because the contracting party unlawfully takes back or adjusts contracted land, or because the contracting party takes back contracted land abandoned or left uncultivated by the contractor, it shall be handled separately according to the following circumstances: (1) If the contracting party has not contracted the land out to another person, and the contractor requests the return of the contracted land, it shall be supported; (2) If the contracting party has already contracted the land out to a third party, and the contractor, with the contracting party and the third party as co-defendants, requests confirmation that the contract they signed is invalid, the return of the contracted land, and compensation for losses, it shall be supported. However, if the circumstances involve the contractor abandoning cultivation or leaving the land uncultivated, the claim for compensation for losses shall not be supported. Where the third party referred to in item (2) of the preceding paragraph requests the beneficiary to compensate for its reasonable investment in the contracted land, it shall be supported." According to this article, the contract signed between the contracting party and the third party violates the provisions of the Rural Land Contracting Law and infringes upon the contractor's rights and interests, and should be confirmed as invalid, and invalid from the outset. Therefore, the third party never acquired lawful and valid land contracted management right from the outset. The provision in item (2) of the first paragraph of this article protecting the contractor's losses shows that even if the land contractor has not actually cultivated the land for many years, its contracted management right has never been lost. Therefore, the contractor rushing to plant on the land did not infringe upon the third party's contracted management right. The losses claimed by the third party generally include two aspects: first, the land income lost because the contractor rushed to plant on the land; second, reasonable investment in the land. As discussed above, the third party never acquired the land contracted management right from the outset, and the contractor rushing to plant on the land did not infringe upon the third party's rights, so the third party's request for compensation for losses from the contractor cannot be supported. However, the third party may file a separate lawsuit against the contracting party, demanding that the contracting party bear liability for breach of contract. Nevertheless, it should also be noted that while the Land Contracting Law and the Interpretation focus on protecting the contractor's statutory land contracted management right, they do not turn a deaf ear to the third party's lawful rights and interests. Article 6 of the Interpretation provides that for the third party's reasonable investment in the land, the beneficiary shall compensate it. If the land is returned to the contractor, the contractor becomes the recipient of the land investment and should compensate the third party for its investment. The third party's investment includes both cultivation investment, such as plowing, sowing, and fertilizing, and investment to improve the land's productive capacity.

Source: China Rural Radio "Cases and Legal Explanations," Rural Land Contracting Arbitration

Reporter: Xu Wen

Editor: Li Yunan

Responsible editor: Bai Chen

Producer: Zhang Lei

Original work of China Rural Radio. Forwarding and reprinting are welcome, but please be sure to indicate the source:WeChat public account "China Rural Radio", and keep the reprinted content presented separately and completely.