However, he questioned whether the system was sufficiently fair and transparent.

Chien said a review of land and property auctions in individual localities would likely reveal organisations and individuals repeatedly winning bids and acquiring substantial volumes of property.

"Have auction activities truly ensured objectivity, transparency and accuracy?" he asked.

Referring to the government's submission, which acknowledged increasingly sophisticated collusion and bid suppression in a small number of cases, Chien questioned whether such misconduct was genuinely limited.

"The government describes these as a small number of cases, but I do not think the number is small," he said.

According to Chien, people with genuine land-use needs are sometimes excluded while those with no intention of using the land emerge as successful bidders.

Some auctioneers have also violated the law or professional ethics, distorting auction outcomes.

He warned that certain auctioneers effectively act as property brokers because they have privileged knowledge of both sellers and prospective buyers.

The revised legislation, he said, must ensure that auctions are transparent and objective while balancing the interests of the state and all participating parties.

Chien also raised concerns over a proposal to increase advance deposits to between 20% and 50% of the starting price for auctions of residential land-use rights allocated to individuals.

He said the proposed range was too wide and could create significant financial difficulties for genuine buyers.

For example, parents seeking to purchase a VND1.5 billion (approximately US$57,000) plot of land in a suburban or rural area so their child could establish a separate household would need to provide a deposit of VND750 million (approximately US$28,500) if the 50% rate applied.

Raising such a sum could force ordinary families to withdraw savings or sell other assets, he said.

By contrast, property speculators could more easily afford deposits ranging from hundreds of millions to several billion dong.

Chien therefore suggested differentiating deposit requirements for residential land auctions, with more favourable conditions for local residents seeking land for genuine housing needs than for bidders from outside the locality.

Ta Thi Yen, Deputy Chairwoman of the National Assembly's Committee for Deputy Affairs, also urged lawmakers to carefully reconsider the proposed 20-50% deposit range.

She acknowledged that higher deposits were intended to strengthen bidders' financial commitments and discourage speculative practices in which participants offer excessively high prices to inflate local land values before forfeiting their deposits.

However, she warned that excessively high deposits could prevent financially capable buyers with genuine housing needs from participating simply because they lacked substantial amounts of readily available cash.

Such a policy might partially address the problem of abandoned deposits but could also reduce competition in auctions.

For a land plot with a starting price of several billion dong, a 50% deposit would already represent a considerable financial burden, Yen said.

If widely applied, the requirement could become a major barrier to ordinary citizens seeking to participate in land auctions.

Rather than relying solely on higher deposits, she proposed strengthening and appropriately incorporating into law restrictions on future auction participation for successful bidders who deliberately fail to meet their financial obligations.

Such an approach, she argued, would target misconduct more directly without imposing excessive financial barriers on all participants.

Tran Thuong