Six departments jointly issued a document to strengthen the fund supervision of housing leasing companies
Enterprises should set up a fund supervision account and publicize it to the public
□ Our reporter Wan Jing
In order to implement the decision and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, strengthen the supervision of housing leasing companies, guide housing leasing companies to return to the source of housing leasing services, prevent and resolve financial risks, and promote the healthy development of the housing leasing market, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Public Security , The State Administration of Market Supervision, the State Cyberspace Administration of China and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently jointly issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Supervision of Asset-light Housing Leasing Enterprises" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions").
The "Opinions" clearly stated that housing leasing companies should set up a housing leasing fund supervision account in a commercial bank, file it with the housing and urban-rural construction department of the city where they are located, and publicize it to the public through the housing leasing management service platform.
When housing leasing companies release housing information, they shall also release housing leasing fund supervision account information.
Closing loopholes in rent regulation
Standardize the leasing market order
According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of 2020, the number of renters in my country has reached 210 million.
Relevant agencies predict that by 2025, the size of the renting group may increase to 250 million people, and the corresponding leasing market capital will exceed 3 trillion yuan.
To a certain extent, the scale of my country's leasing market is no less than that of the commercial housing market.
Especially in the future, as commercial housing shifts from increment to stock, and the leasing market further develops and grows, housing rental will become the mainstream way to solve housing problems in most large and medium cities.
Such a huge market capital scale, on the one hand, tests the regulatory capacity and level of government functional departments, and on the other hand, it also allows some housing leasing companies to "make profits without a lower limit."
In recent years, in some first-tier cities, landlords have arbitrarily driven away tenants, and housing agencies maliciously deducted tenants’ deposits. Some "black agents" have even charged tenants with rent for half a year or a year at a time, and then "run away". occur.
To this end, the "Opinions" put strengthening the supervision of leasing funds as the primary goal, and proposed a series of specific measures, including that housing leasing companies should set up a housing leasing fund supervision account in a commercial bank and file with the housing and urban-rural construction departments of the city where they are located. And through the housing leasing management service platform to the public; when housing leasing companies release housing information, they should also publish housing leasing fund supervision account information, housing leasing companies charge a single rent for more than 3 months, or a single deposit of more than 1 Months, the collected rent and deposit shall be included in the supervision account, and the rent shall be paid to the housing right holder through the supervision account, and the deposit shall be refunded to the tenant; the urban housing and urban-rural construction department shall work with the local financial supervision department to establish a housing leasing fund supervision system , Strengthen daily supervision and management, urge housing leasing companies and commercial banks to fulfill their responsibilities, and ensure that capital supervision is in place.
In this regard, Liu Junhai, a professor at Renmin University of China Law School, believes that the "Opinions" require leasing companies to include rents in their supervisory accounts, and are intended to focus on rectifying long-term rental apartments, real estate agencies, and some natural person "second landlords".
After the rent is included in the supervision account, the intermediary cannot arbitrarily deduct the rent of the tenant, and the intermediary cannot misappropriate the rent of the tenant. This objectively sets up a "firewall" for the blind capital expansion behavior of those long-term rental apartments. , Plugging the loopholes in fund supervision, can play an effective role in regulating the order of the housing rental market.
Refined and full-process supervision
Prevent business risks
It is worth noting that the "Opinions" clearly stated that enterprises engaged in housing leasing operations and natural persons who sublet 10 units (rooms) should register as market entities. In principle, the period of a single rent collection should not exceed 3 months, and a single rent If the deposit is collected for more than one month, a supervisory account should be opened in a bank, filed with the Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and regularly publicized.
Xiong Wenzhao, a professor at the Minzu University of China Law School, believes that regulating the registration of leasing intermediary market entities and the above-mentioned measures to establish leasing fund supervision accounts complement each other. Strengthening leasing market supervision from both personnel and funds can squeeze all types of illegal housing leasing from the basic conditions. The activity space for behaviors eliminates the phenomena of "black intermediaries withholding deposits", "arbitrarily driving tenants", and "fracture of lease funds infringing on the rights and interests of tenants" that have previously attracted the attention of the whole society.
In order to regulate the operation of housing leasing, the "Opinions" also put forward a series of measures. For example, the information system for operating activities of housing leasing companies should implement various policy requirements of Internet management and connect to the housing leasing management service platform of the city where they are located; housing leasing companies should Incorporate operating housing information into the management of the housing lease management service platform, and submit real-time lease contract information, such as the duration of the lease contract, the rental deposit and its payment method, and the basic information of the tenant.
In 2017, Hangzhou, Zhejiang was designated as a pilot city for housing leasing by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
In order to further strengthen the supervision of the housing leasing market, prevent the operating risks of housing leasing companies, and protect the legal rights and interests of house entrusted lessors and lessees, Hangzhou pioneered a leasing fund supervision mechanism in the country and passed the "Hangzhou City Housing Leasing Fund Supervision Measures (Trial)" Documents such as the “Notice on Further Implementing the Supervision of Housing Rental Funds” and other documents require leasing companies to set up special deposit accounts in supervising banks and transfer rental funds to deposit accounts for management. Among them, companies engaged in the use of housing rental housing to carry out housing rental business, It is also necessary to freeze two times the total monthly rent payable by the entrusted lessor corresponding to the amount of housing included in the leasing platform management in the special account as a risk prevention and control fund, to achieve refined, real-time, and full-process supervision of housing leasing activities, and effectively prevent housing Operating risks of leasing companies.
On May 18 this year, Hangzhou announced the first batch of 50 “whitelists” of large-scale housing leasing companies that implement capital supervision to help citizens choose leasing companies and protect their legitimate rights and interests.
At present, many cities across the country, including Hangzhou, Chongqing, Xi'an, Chengdu, and Shenzhen, have issued regulations that require tenants' rent to be deposited into a supervisory account.
In recent years, some housing leasing companies have used the mismatch of rent payment deadlines to establish capital pools, control housing, drive up rents, and even use tenants’ credit to obtain credit funds to carry out financial business in disguise, which has caused a break in the corporate capital chain and gave homeowners. And the tenants cause major economic losses.
To this end, the "Notice" emphasizes that it is prohibited to arbitrarily use housing rental consumer loans.
Among them, it is clearly required that housing leasing companies shall not conduct financial business in a disguised form, shall not embed relevant content of housing rental consumer loans into housing lease contracts, shall not use the tenant’s credit to obtain housing rental consumer loans, and shall not induce tenants in the name of rent installment, rent concessions, etc. Use housing rental consumer loans.
At the same time, the housing and urban-rural construction departments should share with financial institutions the list of housing leasing companies that have high-risk business behaviors such as "high entry and low exit", "long income and short payment". Financial institutions should conduct risk assessments on enterprises and strengthen list management. No loans shall be granted to enterprises included in the above-mentioned list.
Reasonable regulation of rent levels
Establish a healthy rental market
In recent years, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other national functional departments have introduced a series of measures to establish a stable and healthy housing rental market order.
This time, the "Notice" focused its work on reasonably regulating the level of housing rents.
The "Notice" requires that in large cities with strong housing rental market demand, the housing and urban-rural construction departments should establish a housing rent monitoring system, and regularly publish information on the market rent level of different regions and types of rental housing; actively guide both parties to the housing lease to determine rents reasonably , Stabilize market expectations; Strengthen rent monitoring in the housing rental market, pay close attention to the abnormal increase in regional rents, and take necessary measures to stabilize the rent level if the rent rises too fast.
At the same time, it is again emphasized to implement the main responsibility of the city government.
The city government assumes the main responsibility for regulating the development of the housing leasing market. It is necessary to establish a multi-sectoral cooperative housing leasing supervision mechanism for housing and urban-rural construction, development and reform, public security, market supervision, financial supervision, and cybersecurity and informatization, and supervise relevant departments. Incorporated into the government performance appraisal system.
The housing and urban-rural construction departments should speed up the improvement of the model texts of housing lease contracts, establish and improve the housing lease management service platform, implement penetrating supervision through the platform, and work with financial supervision departments to increase the investigation and punishment of housing leasing companies engaged in financial business in disguised form. .
The market supervision department should strengthen supervision, investigate and deal with illegal activities such as false advertisements and rent-raising according to law, and severely crack down on monopoly behavior.
Financial supervision departments should guide financial institutions to strengthen the management of housing rental consumer loans.
The public security department shall investigate and deal with the suspected contract fraud and other criminal acts in accordance with the law, and take corresponding measures in accordance with the law against the legal representative, actual controller and other relevant personnel of the enterprise when necessary.
The network information department shall take measures in accordance with the law to deal with network information platforms that publish false information in violation of regulations.
The "Notice" also requires that sub-district offices and communities should give full play to the role of grassroots grid managers, supervise the filing of housing lease contracts, and assist in the investigation of housing leasing companies with high-risk operations.
Comprehensively use people's mediation, administrative mediation, industry-specific mediation, judicial mediation and other multiple mediation mechanisms to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties involved in housing leasing and properly resolve conflicts and disputes in housing leasing.