Renovating small property houses tests the wisdom of the government

The Ministry of Natural Resources once again set the tone for small property houses

  ● Small property houses are welcomed because of their low cost and low price, but they are contrary to current laws. How to properly handle and deal with the problem of small property housing has become a problem that governments at all levels need to solve urgently, testing the government’s management wisdom and ability to govern

  ● The purchase of a small property house will bring some subsequent legal disputes, such as construction quality, fire safety, after-sales maintenance and property management are difficult to guarantee, there is a risk of illegal construction, bad end, unable to apply for mortgage loans, no transfer, inheritance, punishment, Rights such as demolition income

  ● To solve the problem of small property houses, it is basically necessary to further promote the reform of collective land, so that the right to use collective land can enter the market. Like state-owned land, the same land has the same rights and fair competition on the same basis.

  □ Reporter Wang Yang

  □ reporter Bai Chuxuan

  Recently, the Ministry of Natural Resources issued the "Notice on Accelerating the Registration of Homestead and Collective Construction Land Use Rights", saying that in the work, it is illegal to buy houses for illegal construction of houses occupied by arbitrarily occupied cultivated land, violation of ecological protection red line control requirements, and urban residents. Homesteads, houses with small property rights, etc., must not be registered, and illegal land use must not be legalized through registration.

  This "official declaration" completely destroyed the illusion of many home buyers who bought small property houses.

  "Small property house" is not a legal concept, it is a conventional title. It usually refers to houses built on peasant collective land, without paying land transfer fees and other fees, and the property rights certificate is not issued by the national housing management department, so it is sometimes called "township property rights."

  According to a data from the Institute, the housing area of ​​all cities and towns in the country including small property houses is 29.8 billion square meters, of which the area of ​​small property houses is 7.3 billion square meters, accounting for 24%, second only to 38 % Of commercial housing area.

  Experts interviewed by a reporter from the Legal Daily believe that today, when the prices of ordinary commodity housing are high, small property houses are welcomed because of the low cost and low price, but they are contrary to the current law. However, if all the small-property housing projects are demolished, not only will resources be wasted, but conflicts will also be intensified. How to properly handle and deal with the problem of small property housing has become a problem that governments at all levels need to solve urgently, testing the government's management wisdom and ability to govern.

Brutal growth of small property houses

Legal disputes are common

  Because her son was going to get married, Ms. Kong from Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, was introduced to buy a 128-square-meter house in Mingjing New City Community, Kunming Road, Xi'an, with a total price of only 530,000 yuan. Because it is a small property house, the price is cheap, and Ms. Kong bought it without much consideration. Later, Ms. Kong went to the sales department to collect the keys, but learned that the house was sold to others at the same time.

  A dispute occurred in another small property house in Xi'an.

  The small property house in Gabei Garden, Hejia Village, Hongguang Road Community, Sanqiao Sub-district Office, Fengdong New City, Xi’an. Because the district does not have five certificates, the water company cannot connect to the pipeline, so it has been using black well water. Homebuyers are quite cryptic about this.

  "Legal Daily" reporter combed the public information and found that similar scenes have been staged in many places across the country.

  House prices have been rising rapidly for a long time, far exceeding the income level of the local general employment, and when affordable housing and low-rent housing cannot meet the housing demand, small property houses have sprung up. However, disputes over the sale, confirmation, and expropriation of small-property houses often occur.

  In November 2019, the Longhua District Court of Shenzhen opened a trial to hear a case of tort liability dispute. Chen Moumou, who chose a small property house, requested Shi Mou, who illegally occupied the house, to vacate the house and make compensation for infringement. After the hearing, because Chen Moumou had no evidence to prove that he legally enjoyed the property rights of the real estate in question, and there was no evidence to prove that he actually possessed and used the real estate, the court finally ruled to dismiss Chen Moumou's prosecution.

  In fact, at the policy level, the relevant departments have maintained the definition of violations of small property rights.

  From 1999 to the present, the relevant departments have made repeated orders that collective land should not be used for the development of commercial housing, and urban residents do not receive housing plots, peasant houses, or small property houses in rural areas.

  However, small property houses have not collapsed because of high policy pressure, and the scale of small property houses everywhere has become larger and larger.

  According to Hu Gongqun, a legislative advisory expert of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, small property rights have been inexhaustible for a long time, reflecting a distorted state of the Chinese real estate market that cannot be justified. At present, housing prices in some cities have completely deviated from the real purchasing power of residents, leading people to be sighed at the “houses” of legal buildings. Therefore, illegal small property houses whose prices are much lower than commercial houses have become a helpless choice for some low-income groups.

  Some insiders said that although the State Council's housing construction administration has made three orders, it requires local governments at all levels to expedite the handling of small property housing issues. Because a large proportion of small property houses are developed by township and village government organizations, it is also very difficult to handle because of the involvement of grassroots governments. If there is no grassroots government to participate in acquiescence, the development, construction, transaction and handover of small property houses will not be so smooth.

  Beijing lawyer Xiao Dongping said that many people buy and sell small property houses in private, but no matter whether it is a buyer or a seller, the contract signed by them is not counted at all, and it is difficult to bring a lawsuit to file a case. In addition to being unable to obtain legal protection, the purchase of small property rights will also bring some subsequent legal disputes, such as construction quality, fire safety, after-sales maintenance and property management are difficult to guarantee; there is a risk of illegal construction and bad tail; unable to handle mortgage loans ; No right to transfer, inherit, dispose, demolition income, etc.

"Zhengzheng" rumors are one after another

The definition of "illegal" has not changed so far

  According to media reports, the total number of small property houses in Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Beijing accounted for more than 60% of the country.

  For most people who have bought a small property house, they have always hoped that the small property house can be "corrected" as soon as possible.

  The fact is that the legends about the "reversion" of small property houses are wave after wave, but in the end they are all speculations.

  On November 12, 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee reviewed and adopted the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues in Comprehensively Deepening Reform" (hereinafter referred to as "Decision"). "Decision" pointed out that the establishment of a unified urban and rural construction land market. Under the premise of conformity with planning and use control, the rural collective operating construction land is allowed to be transferred, leased, or bought into stocks, with the same price as the state-owned land in the market, with the same rights and the same price.

  Since then, the news that the small property houses have been "corrected" has aroused widespread concern in the society. But then the facts proved that this was a misunderstanding of "Decision".

  Zhang Yunshu, a professor of law at Anhui University of Finance and Economics, believes that although the "Decision" clearly stipulates that rural collective operating land is allowed to be transferred, leased or bought into shares, it does not mean that the dawn of the "reversion" of small property houses has already emerged. According to the above-mentioned "Decision", it is only for operational land that can be transacted, and more small property houses are rural homesteads, which do not belong to operational land.

  On August 28, 2017, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Housing, Urban and Rural Construction announced the “Pilot Program for the Use of Collective Construction Land for the Construction of Rental Housing”, and decided to conduct a pilot project for collective construction land for the construction of rental housing in the first 13 cities in the country.

  This pilot project of collective construction land for the construction of leased housing was regarded by some people as a sign of "reversion" of small property houses.

  But in fact, the pilot programs of the two departments made it very clear that the rental housing for collective construction land needs to perform the project approval process, improve the collective construction land planning permission system, promote unified planning, overall layout, unified management, and unified related construction standards. The full set of procedures is almost similar to the development and construction of commercial housing.

  On August 26, 2019, the twelfth meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress voted to adopt the decision to amend the "Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China". The new Land Management Law will come into effect on January 1, 2020.

  The new Land Management Law removes the provisions of Article 43 of the original law on "any units and individuals need to use land for construction and must use state-owned land" to break the legal barriers for rural collective construction land to enter the market.

  Some people interpreted that the state voluntarily gave up the absolute monopoly on the primary market of land transactions. Since then, there is no difference between "large property houses" and "small property houses" in Chinese real estate, and the problem of small property houses is solved.

  Today, the Ministry of Natural Resources in the "Notice on Accelerating the Registration of the Right to Use Homesteads and Collective Construction Land" issued on May 14th reiterated that small property houses cannot legalize illegal land use through registration.

  As a result, the illusion of home buyers who bought small-property houses was completely broken.

The same place with the same rights and fair competition

Illegal behavior cannot be exempted

  In the past two years, the storm of demolishing and rectifying illegal buildings has swept the country. The cities are much cleaner and brighter. Many bazaars have been demolished, and the private construction on the street has disappeared.

  But for the renovation of small property houses, except for the small villas in some mountainous areas that have been pushed out, a large number of small property houses in the city have not moved.

  According to Guo Zeqiang, a professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, the problem of small property housing cannot be delayed or circumvented, and has reached a point where it must be resolved. To solve the problem of small property houses, we must respect the law, but also take into account the history and reality, but also face the future of China's real estate market and land system, must have great wisdom and a big pattern, rather than repeat the harsh and useless old tunes of the past. From a technical point of view, only the "stock" is resolved, and no new "incremental" is generated. By making up for the relevant formalities, these "illegal buildings" are officially entered into the mainstream housing system.

  "Legal Daily" reporter learned that it is not unprecedented to pay land transfer fees to solve the problems left over by the history of small property houses.

  A few days ago, in the Colorful Star City Community of Nanjing's large-scale small-property housing project, many owners received a notice and could replace the purchase contract and go through the bank mortgage and other procedures. Since the nature of the land at the start of the construction of the project is collective land, this also means that the small property houses have successfully achieved "reversion".

  Xi Zhiguo, executive director of the Real Estate and Finance Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, believes that to solve the problem of small property houses, it is basically necessary to further promote collective land reform, so that collective land use rights can enter the market, so that it can be the same as the state-owned land. , To conduct fair competition on the same basis, so that the basis for small property houses does not exist.

  In fact, the new land management law already allows the transfer of collective construction land use rights. Xi Zhiguo suggested that the next step should be to further improve the transfer of collective land use rights to thoroughly solve the problem of small property housing.

  For the small property houses that have been built, Xi Zhiguo advocates handling according to different situations.

  "Those who have violated the law seriously and established the corresponding approval procedures for the conversion of agricultural land to construction land on collective agricultural land must be dealt with strictly, that is, they must be corrected by demolishing and restoring the original state of the land, and they must never be legalized. Otherwise, it not only seriously violates the national basic policy for protecting cultivated land, but also makes the law useless and loses the authority of the law." Xi Zhiguo said, "For those who conform to the national construction master plan, the use of small property houses built on construction land , It will be legalized under the conditions of the new land management law, and the corresponding property rights will be registered. However, due to the illegality of its behavior during construction, it cannot be exempted, and it should still be punished through administrative penalties.