Hardcover room becomes "surprise room": the decoration market is everywhere
There are many "deep water" routines, and it is difficult for owners to defend their rights. Housing decoration trust black hole calls for full chain governance
Our reporter Zhao Jiulong, Zhang Bin, Cheng Siqi
Housing issues are related to people's livelihood and well-being, and so is decoration.
However, there are many multi-level subcontracting routines, lack of supervision, and it is difficult to safeguard rights. Full score promises negative construction, and hardcover houses have become "surprise houses"... The masses complain about the decoration market everywhere.
Relevant conflicts and disputes are prominent in some places, and they have become areas with high incidence of letters and visits.
What are the routines in the housing decoration market?
Why is it difficult to govern?
Is there any good way to promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry?
Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter launched an investigation.
Hardcover changed to "surprise outfit", "it collapsed before moving in"
Before they could move in, the flue of Building 9 of Phase I collapsed as a whole...Not long ago, many owners of Tangning House in Hailiang, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province reported that they were really shocked by the hardcover room delivered in October last year. , It collapsed!" "It's scary, like an earthquake."
The reporter saw at the scene that the collapsed part involved one to nine floors, with large rocks scattered on the ground.
Some owners said that there are many problems with these hard-covered houses, including cracks in the balcony beams, cracks in the entrance doors, hollow floors, and cracks in the door stone.
Ms. Li from Nanjing, Jiangsu also reported: “The house I bought in Maigaoqiao claims constant temperature and humidity, but the exterior wall materials are flammable and overfire. The developer promised to replace the materials. Later, not only did it not change, but it also thickened.” Ms. Li To be more serious, the gas pipes are exposed, and some even pass through the bedroom or kitchen. If the gas leaks, the consequences will be disastrous.
The price includes renovation costs, but there are frequent problems.
The housing price of Spring and Autumn Huating Community in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province is 33,000 yuan per square meter, including decoration costs of 6,000 yuan per square meter.
But when the owners came to inspect the house, they found that a house had problems ranging from dozens to hundreds, and some owners also found serious gas leaks.
Some brand developers have also been complained frequently.
In 2020, two well-decorated buildings in Poly Lingxiu Qiancheng, Nanning City, Guangxi were complained by the owners: the shoe cabinets and cabinets were not tiled, some drain pipes were rusty, and the wooden floor was loose...Although the owners have repeatedly reported to the developers, But it has not been resolved.
The three phases of Vanke Yulan Road in Chongqing are all hard-covered houses. They will be delivered in October 2020. Many owners have discovered that there are problems with the houses. Hundreds of owners have collectively defended their rights in the sales department.
According to the owner, the ceiling of the bathroom in the house sees serious water, like a "water curtain hole".
After disassembling, it was found that the quality of water pipes and waterproof materials was poor, and the floor drains and pipes were not the correct size.
The public part of the hardcover housing complex has become a “severe disaster area” with reduced allocation.
A developer in Hangzhou revealed that everything from the garden landscape to the small entrance hall can be reduced.
These are basically not reflected in contracts and model houses. Even if the developers had publicity or verbal promises at the time, once there was a distribution reduction in these areas, it would be difficult for home buyers to defend their rights.
Contradictions and disputes involving housing are prominent, and they have become a high incidence area for letters and visits.
The reporter learned from the relevant departments of Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province that the real estate disputes received in 2020 accounted for 22.1% of the total number of conflicts and disputes of all kinds.
The Market Supervision Bureau of Jiulongpo District, Chongqing City stated that related petition issues involve a large amount of funds and a large number of people.
Experts and industry insiders believe that behind the frequent complaints about hardcover houses, it highlights that "hardcover profiteering" is experiencing weak supervision.
Housing decoration becomes a black hole of trust, many routines are difficult to supervise
The annual output value of the residential decoration business in my country's building decoration industry exceeds 2 trillion yuan.
However, the survey found that not only the hard-covered houses have many problems, but the second-hand house decoration has too much "sale" color, the pricing method is complicated, and there are also many routines and it is difficult to protect rights.
"Acceptance is the protection of rights." Many residents complained about decoration.
The reporter searched on platforms such as Xianyu and Dianyou and found that there are merchants providing services in various links of the decoration market, such as water, electricity, clay, paint, bricklayer, and wall smashing, and the quotations range from 1 yuan, 8 yuan, 58.9 yuan to several thousand yuan. Asked about the customer service, but said it was a low-cost drainage, on-site bargaining.
"It's unreliable. The decoration construction team smashed the load-bearing wall of my house. Neighbors complained and made trouble at the police station." said Ms. Zhai, a citizen of Jianye District, Nanjing. "It's a hurdle in life."
Some citizens interviewed said that most of the decoration companies promised full marks and negative marks for construction, which made it sound and did not do well.
Nanning citizen Ms. Li said that her house was decorated with a budget of 300,000 yuan, and the contract was signed, but the construction was full of problems.
"The quotation of building materials is two to thirty percent more expensive than the market price, and the most expensive one is several times more expensive. The measured area is a few square meters more than the actual area. I was accused of not understanding the market when I communicated. In the end, I spent more than 100,000 yuan more than the budget."
Ms. Tang, a resident of a community in Chanba Ecological District, Xi'an, bought a second-hand house for renovation in 2017. The waterproof layer of the bathroom was not done well, and the ground water slowly penetrated into the residents downstairs, causing neighborhood conflicts.
"Later it was discovered that the construction team did not have the qualifications, because she was negligent and had to accept the plant." Ms. Tang said in desperation, she hired a maintenance worker to re-lay the waterproof material, but later found that the water was still leaking, and then contacted the maintenance worker. , It was discovered that the opponent had been "blocked".
Difficulty in identifying contract traps, lack of industry standards, and unclear personnel qualifications are also common problems in the decoration field.
Some consumers report that they often encounter "contract traps" when signing decoration contracts with businesses.
Wei Zheng, a citizen of Nanning, said that the contract signed by the decoration company is several pages, many of which are unreadable, and there are many "hidden" clauses that ordinary people cannot find.
Such as the selection of decoration materials and decoration services, the expression is vague.
In the contract, the cost of decoration garbage removal and material transportation accounted for 10% to 15% of the total cost of decoration. "When I calculated the money, I discovered that because it was written in the contract, I could only suffer a dumb loss."
An employee of a decoration company in Nanning said that the company has a designer certificate and a construction certificate. When asked why it was not posted in an obvious place, the employee replied that the company started as an electric power company and these certificates are not easy to post.
The reporter asked whether all employees have a practicing certificate, but the employee was vague.
Several decoration companies visited said that the decoration masters have long-term cooperation with the company, but they are not employees of the company.
Not only can you not understand it during the renovation, but you can't see it after the renovation, and the lack of supervision also makes it difficult to defend rights.
The reporter's investigation found that many decoration companies require payment before decoration, and there is no third-party supervision of funds. Some decoration problems will only be exposed after the official move-in or even a few years after the move-in, and the difficulty of protecting rights is greatly increased.
"It is difficult to see the quality of decoration only from the appearance of the finished product." Nanning citizen Ms. Li said that about a year after her house moved in, the wooden floor was moldy and warped.
"The money was given long ago, and it's harder to think about protecting rights."
Information is seriously asymmetry, multi-level subcontracting and cutting corners are prevalent
The reporter's investigation found that the information between the two parties was asymmetry, industry standards were lacking, and the overlord clauses were rampant. Some decoration teams often used cheap materials to shoddy good ones, leading to frequent disputes.
Information is severely asymmetric, and multi-level subcontracting and cutting corners are prevalent.
Mr. Wang, a citizen of Qixia District, Nanjing, has been engaged in engineering decoration for many years. He said that whether it is looking for workers, decoration team or decoration company, the final construction process is mostly completed by mobile outsourcing workers, and there is a paradox of "spending money without worry" .
Nanning decoration master Lao Huang said that decoration companies often subcontract at multiple levels and eventually "outsource" them to workers. The qualifications of the personnel are unclear, the profits are low and it is easy to cut corners, and consumers become lambs to be slaughtered.
Guo Li, a senior partner of Beijing DeHeng (Shenzhen) Law Firm, believes that the main reason for decoration chaos is that decoration companies often subcontract projects, and problems arise in the later stage.
Yang Huande, deputy general manager of China Construction Eighth Bureau Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd., said that many decoration companies made false quotations, cut corners, and shoddy good ones.
"For example, for wood products, there are not many manufacturers in the market that can provide enough thickness, and ordinary consumers can't figure it out."
"Bulk workers" bucked a lot, and no person in charge was found to defend their rights.
Tan Runqing, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Political Science and Law of the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences, said that the “small and weak” in the home improvement industry is more prominent, and it is still common for individuals to contract business as a contractor, even compared with 20 years ago. The authors are also searching for such a bag company through word of mouth.
Under the "bulk workers" decoration model, the company's management and service levels for workers are very low.
Zheng Meiju, a national first-level registered architect, told reporters that at present, the decoration industry is a mixed bag with excessive mobility. It is mainly road workers and guerrillas, and the quality of construction can only depend on the conscience of the workers.
According to industry insiders, decoration is a consumer behavior with a low repurchase rate. Consumer rights protection is usually a single case, and many lawyers are unwilling to take over.
Difficulty in supervision has led to the formation of vicious low-price competition in the market.
Yang Huande introduced that the supervision of the decoration industry is very difficult, leading to the competition of enterprises mainly in the early stage, that is, to win customers at low prices, and it is normal for the final link to be shoddy.
Many owners have insufficient knowledge of the product, resulting in high-quality brands that are not competitive, and bad money drives out good money.
A staff member of the Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of Jiangsu Province said frankly that the current regulatory agencies also lack comprehensive and refined industry evaluation standards and severe penalties. The number of supervisory law enforcement personnel is limited, and they are often in a state of passive supervision.
In recent years, many places across the country have advocated the delivery of refined decoration of commercial housing.
For example, the city of Xi’an requires that from January 1, 2019, the implementation of fully-decorated finished products in newly built residential buildings in the city’s administrative regions is aimed at comprehensively improving the quality of residential construction and reducing resource consumption and secondary decoration pollution.
Yu Xiaofen, vice president of Zhejiang University of Technology and vice president of the China Society of Real Estate Appraisers and Real Estate Agents, believes that hard-covered houses or finished houses as called in some places have become a market trend. The standards of finished houses are more vague, and the profit margins of hardcover houses are relatively large, which leads developers to covet "hardcover huge profits" and cut corners on the fine decoration.
“Renovation prices are filed, but there are no complaints about the price reductions when the houses are delivered. This has become a means for developers to bypass price restrictions and seek high profits. Many real estates are decorated for price increases, and the decoration standards are exaggerated and substandard. This has led to an increase in disputes over housing acquisition and rights protection." Yu Xiaofen said that to a certain extent, the real dilemma faced by finely decorated houses is not about the level of technology and craftsmanship, but that developers regard them more as a "metronome" for adjusting profits.
In addition, the signing of contracts is difficult to implement, and there are many disputes in the lack of standards and ambiguities.
Hangzhou individual decoration master Jiang Wenming said that he does not have a professional design plan, and generally carries out construction according to the owner's verbal description.
However, there is a lot of ambiguity. There will be deviations in understanding between the two parties. After the renovation is completed, rectification will be carried out. It is difficult for both parties to effectively determine the costs and responsibilities.
Set up a fund supervision account and implement a third-party supervisor system
The housing decoration market is full of chaos, and disputes frequently occur in some places. The interviewees hate it. They look forward to strengthening supervision, cracking down on fraud and fraud in multiple departments and the whole chain, and standardizing the healthy development of the home improvement industry.
Gu Dasong, associate professor of Southeast University Law School, suggested that the decoration industry involves multiple links such as building materials, assembly, and construction. It should not only focus on the decoration service terminal link, but should coordinate the entire upstream and downstream industrial chain, forming from raw materials, processing plants, construction units, etc. Supervision works together to solve the problem of supervision that cannot be found by defending rights.
Li Danwei, associate professor of Ningbo Institute of Technology, suggested that the quality supervision responsibility of decoration companies should be strengthened, and the credit reporting mechanism of the decoration industry should be improved.
Guo Li suggested that the implementation of a third-party supervisor system, the establishment of fund supervision accounts, the development of individual-oriented engineering supervision industry, and strengthen the later behavior of decoration companies.
Tan Runqing suggested that the competent authority or industry association should take the lead to set up a fund supervision account, study and set a reasonable fund supervision percentage, and pay the money to the decoration company after the house decoration is completed and signed by both parties.
Improve the contract setting and reduce the cost of rights protection.
Industry insiders suggest that relevant departments should study and issue detailed guidance templates for decoration contracts, especially for important clauses such as whether to subcontract, determine the brand of decoration materials, payment nodes, progress of decoration, mandatory supervisor system, payment method of warranty money, liability for breach of contract, etc. Detailed and detailed regulations.
Strengthen the standardization and management of the signing of agreements for the decoration industry, promote the payment method after decoration, and effectively protect the rights and interests of consumers.
The plight of hardcover houses urgently needs to be systematically managed.
The industry believes that the regulatory role of the competent department in the residential decoration industry needs to be supported by a sound legal system.
At present, some localities are formulating and detailing relevant policies. For example, in response to the crux of housing-related complaints and letters and visits, since last year, the Chongqing market supervision department has focused on advertising and contract two key points, and explored and implemented disadvantages in real estate projects in Jiulongpo District. Factor notification mechanism, the volume of housing-related complaints and reports, letters and visits has dropped significantly.
Yu Xiaofen believes that the reason why developers can be so "unscrupulous" is that the off-plan housing system is the "original sin".
At present, in the Chinese real estate market, off-plan housing accounts for more than 80%, and the delivery cycle is generally 2 to 3 years, which provides room for developers to "black box operation".
It is recommended to increase the sales ratio of existing homes, and at the same time, when completing the land transfer, set a certain time node for construction and decoration to prevent developers from increasing the turnover rate and rushing to the construction period, which will be shoddy and affect the quality of decoration.
There are also some industry insiders who suggest that the traditional model with the foreman as the core should be abolished, and a certification system should be established for personnel in the home improvement industry to vigorously develop high-quality, modern decoration.
Experts reminded that the principle of “construction according to drawings and acceptance according to drawings” is basically followed, and a third party can be hired for professional acceptance. If problems are found, the owner can negotiate with the developer for rectification, and if the developer refuses to rectify, he can complain to the regulatory authority.
For the decoration of second-hand houses, try to find a professional design and construction team. Before construction, professionals should be asked to conduct on-site surveys of the house, and try to take pictures throughout the process to leave marks.
When signing the decoration contract, the details of the decoration should be checked and indicated one by one, and the final payment should be checked and accepted one by one. If any problems are encountered, they should be reported to the relevant authorities for rights protection in accordance with the law.
(Participated in the collection and writing: Xu Shunda, Lin Fanshi, Zhou Kai)