Buyers do not understand and are not willing to "spend a lot of money to buy a house"
Buying a house including the shared area is unreasonable
Editor's note
On October 20, the National Bureau of Statistics released statistical data on the changes in the sales prices of commercial housing in 70 large and medium-sized cities in September 2021, and the number of cities with rising housing prices hit a new low.
Since the beginning of this year, the central bank has also voiced many times: safeguarding the healthy development of the real estate market and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of housing consumers.
The house has long been a topic of concern and heated discussion among the people, and it is one of the biggest livelihoods.
At the end of 2016, the central government proposed that "the house is for living, not for speculation."
Adhering to the principle of "housing and living without speculation" has ensured the healthy development of China's property market.
At the same time, in reality, chaos in the real estate market such as price increases in disguise and fraudulent purchases are still commonplace. In particular, problems in the shared area, fine decoration, and rental market are even more painful and difficult for the people.
How to better meet the people's demand for housing and let the housing return to its residential attributes?
The reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" focused on the above-mentioned pain points and difficult issues to conduct in-depth investigations. From today, a series of reports will be launched in the Rule of Law Jingwei Edition, so stay tuned.
● Different buildings in a community may have different sharing rates due to different storey heights.
For example, the share rate for 6-storey residential buildings is generally 18% to 20%; the share rate for 10-storey residential buildings is often more than 20%; the share rate for high-rise residential buildings with 20 floors or more will reach 30% or even more. high
● In addition to the fact that the information disclosure is not open and transparent, the calculation method of the shared area is not clear at present. Including the shared area in the housing price can easily cause a lot of chaos.
● For different types of residences, taking into account the actual use of the building, regulations are issued to limit the upper limit of the share area of newly built residential buildings, forcing real estate developers and related parties to make reasonable plans when constructing houses instead of increasing the share area arbitrarily , Infringing on the housing rights of buyers
□ The reporter's trainee reporter Zhang Shoukun
□ Our reporter Han Dandong
Thousands of choices finally took a fancy to a 98-square-meter three-bedroom apartment. The layout and decoration are good, but the pool area occupies nearly 24 square meters. This has made buyers Donghua very upset recently.
After working in Tianjin for 4 years, the house was just needed, so he couldn't buy it, but he was unwilling to buy a house with such a large pool area.
In the actual house purchase process, Donghua's fortunes were not bad.
Not long ago, a real estate in Qingdao City, Shandong Province caused a heated discussion on the Internet due to the super-high shareable area: "The original house of 122 square meters, measured by an experienced housekeeper, the actual use area is only about 62 square meters." The good 31% becomes 46%, accounting for nearly half of the building area, and the master bedroom can’t even fit a 1.8-meter bed"...
The shared area refers to the area of the public building space in the commercial housing that should be allocated and included in the sales area in the sales of commercial housing, including stairwells, elevator shafts, public corridors, etc.
In recent years, the discussion about the shared area has remained high.
Some people think that it is unfair to include the shared area in the housing price and should be cancelled; others believe that the cancellation of the shared area may lead to a substantial increase in housing prices, which is undesirable.
Recently, a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily interviewed a number of sales offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Anhui, Chongqing and other places and found that the disputes about the shared area are mostly due to various chaos behind it, such as the failure to deal with home buyers in advance. Publicity and calculation methods are not open and transparent, etc.
Several experts interviewed by reporters believe that it is not very feasible to cancel the public area in our country. Therefore, it is more critical to strengthen supervision. It is necessary to strictly implement the developer’s information disclosure system for public facilities, public area and related charges, and establish at the same time Improve the relevant supervisory mechanism to ensure that the shared area expenses paid by the buyers are based on evidence.
Shared cost of public space
High floor sharing rate is also high
During the National Day this year, Donghua came to a real estate sales office in Hedong District, Tianjin. He wanted to take advantage of the National Day special offer to finalize the house, but when he walked into the model room, he was puzzled.
"A three-bedroom apartment with 98 square meters is located on a 9-story building. From the perspective of the model room, the layout and decoration are very good, but it always feels less spacious than the 70-square-meter house I rent now." Dong Hua raised his question to the salesperson.
The other party explained that the shared area of this room accounts for about 24% of the building area, and the built-in building area is about 74 square meters. "Compared with other surrounding real estates, this shared area is already considered low."
Donghua, who bought a house for the first time in his life, couldn't understand this: Why should the pooled area be included in the housing price, and the pooled area is still so large, and what is the calculation standard?
Yang Qinfa, director of the Institute of Real Estate Policy and Law of East China University of Political Science and Law, explained that one of the reasons is that China adopted the welfare housing allocation system in the early stage. Later, with the marketization of housing, commercial housing emerged and occupied the mainstream position. While housing prices soared, they were strictly controlled by the government. This allows developers to seek a way to control housing prices on paper but in fact do not harm their interests or even create more interests.
"At the same time, with the rapid advancement of urbanization in China, a large number of people have poured into cities and urban central areas, and the area of land that can be used for living in these areas is relatively limited. Therefore, urban residents generally live in high-rise residential buildings in closed communities. It is determined that the problem of shared area in our country is unavoidable, and the shared area will inevitably lead to the sharing of expenses." Yang Qinfa said that the shared expenses here include not only construction costs (for home buyers, as housing prices), but also the construction process The management and maintenance costs incurred (represented as property fees for buyers) are the main reasons why the concept of shared area is generally adopted in mainland China and used to calculate housing prices and property fees.
However, the shared area is not a legal concept.
"The current laws, regulations and rules do not define the concept of shared area." Yang Qinfa pointed out that it is generally believed that the building area = the building area inside the apartment + the total building area; the building area inside the apartment = the usable area inside the apartment + the inside wall Body area + balcony building area.
The shared area is the total building area, which refers to the part of the building area that is jointly owned or used by all property rights entities to share the expenses.
According to the above statement, the reporter found out that the shared area includes elevator shafts, stairwells, garbage passages, substations, equipment rooms, public halls and aisles, basements, guard rooms on duty, and other functions that serve the entire building. Public houses and management houses also include partition walls between households.
So, what is the specific share area of a suite?
The reporter consulted sales staff and real estate agents in 10 sales offices in Tianjin, Beijing, Anhui, Chongqing and other places.
According to Mr. Pei, a sales consultant of an intermediary company in Gaojiayuan District, Chaoyang District, Beijing, the real estate market mainly uses the share rate and the housing acquisition rate to indicate the share area of a suite.
"The share rate is the ratio of the share area of the house to the total area of the house (building area), and the housing rate refers to the ratio of the building area in the package to the building area."
“It’s very good that the housing rate can be 80%. Now most of the newly built communities are high-rise buildings, and the share rate is basically above 25%." Mr. Hu, a real estate salesperson in Hefei City, Anhui Province, told reporters, “but the share price The rate is not as low as possible, because a low share rate means that the public area of the community is small, and the living environment and comfort may be difficult to guarantee."
The reporter found in the investigation that different buildings in a community may have different share rates due to different storey heights.
For example, for a 6-storey residential building, its share rate is generally 18% to 20%; for a 10-storey mid-to-high-rise residential building, its share rate is often above 20%; for a building with more than 20 floors For high-rise residential buildings, due to the height of stairs, wall thickness, strong and weak electric wells and other public facilities, the share rate will reach 30% or even higher.
There is no upper limit on the share of shares
The calculation standard is not yet clear
"The area of the storage room in the building No. 3, No. 4, and No. 9 is too large, please check it carefully!" On October 13, the official website of the Real Estate Management Center of Dezhou City, Shandong Province announced information on the area of real estate surveying and mapping in a community. , The above paragraph of capitalized bold boldface is particularly eye-catching.
The reporter clicked on the link to the surveying and mapping results and found that the shared area of the storage rooms in these three buildings was much larger than the area inside the suite.
For example, the storage room 3 on the first floor of Building 3 has a building area of less than 6 square meters and a shared area of 11 square meters; the storage room of Building 3 has a combined area of 210 square meters, but the shared area is 396. Square meters.
"The underground storage room has a large aisle area, plus the stairwells, elevator shafts, etc., all account for the shared area. The storage room often accounts for more than half of the shared area. At present, China does not have an upper limit on the residential area." Beijing City Ai Hongqiang, a lawyer at Jingshi (Quanzhou) Law Firm, explained.
In Ai Hongqiang’s view, the Dezhou Real Estate Management Center’s measures to publicize the high public share rate are still very humane, "so that consumers can notice when buying a house. In practice, many developers do not publicize public shares. The area is not even stated in the contract, which leads to the situation where buyers'spend big money to buy a house' and cause many disputes."
The reporter recently visited the sales offices of 5 real estates in Hedong District, Heping District, and Hexi District of Tianjin, and found that none of the real estate introduction pictures contained the content of the shared area; only one of the 5 sales staff actively mentioned the related content of the public share. Others only give brief introductions when asked by reporters, and pass by.
So, when buying and selling houses, should the seller publicize the shared area?
Yang Qinfa believes that there are currently no laws and regulations that require sellers of houses to publicize the public area, but buyers can ask the sellers to inform or stipulate in the contract, but such requirements are often difficult to guarantee.
Ai Hongqiang said that, according to existing regulations, the parties directly invoked Article 20 of the "Commercial Housing Sales Management Measures" to request cancellation of the contract and check-out on the grounds that the house area error exceeds plus or minus 3%.
Moreover, in practice, developers often sign supplementary agreements with buyers to supplement or change the content of commercial housing sales contracts. Therefore, consumers should pay more attention when signing contracts.
The reporter's investigation found that in addition to the fact that information disclosure is not open and transparent, the calculation method of the shared area is currently not clear. Including the shared area in the housing price can easily cause a lot of chaos.
Among them, there is a lot of controversy over whether the shared area is charged according to the fine decoration.
Liu Ming, who lives in Hedong District, Tianjin, just started a newly decorated house this year, which was decorated according to the standard of 3,000 yuan per square meter.
He believes that public facilities such as elevators and stairs certainly do not have fine decoration, but the final price of the public share area is also included in the total price of the house according to the fine decoration price, and it also includes the heating fee.
"Does the building of the public stall also have to install heating?" Liu Ming was a bit aggrieved.
During the interview, the reporter found that whether the shared area is charged according to the fine decoration, the practice varies in different regions, but the property fees, taxes, etc. are calculated on the basis of the building area including the shared area.
In addition, according to Yang Qinfa, a small number of developers have illegally included the part of the current law that is not included in the shared building area as the share area, and then sell or lease these share facilities, such as the sale or lease of parking lots, and the lease of corridor advertising spaces. Etc., the income generated is not included in property management fees or residential maintenance funds, etc., but is owned by the developer or the property.
"These have increased the burden on the owners, and ultimately caused the owners to buy the house at a high price but the rights and interests were damaged. The complaints of the buyers about the shared area have always existed." Yang Qinfa said.
Cancellation is more difficult
Strengthening supervision is imminent
Under the chaos, there has been a heated discussion about whether or not to abolish the shared area included in the housing price.
The reporter found out that some people did not support the cancellation because they were worried about the price increase after the cancellation; some people said that the cancellation of the public share is the general trend, because the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in 2019 has released relevant signals for public comments on the "Residential Project Specification".
In this regard, Zhao Xiuchi, vice president and secretary-general of the Beijing Real Estate Society, believes that there are many factors that affect housing prices, which have little to do with the pricing method.
On the surface, the house price measured by the building area will be lower, and the house price measured by the usable area will be higher, and the charges for property and other charges are the same.
But for the whole house, the total price or the collected property fees will not be undercharged because of the different measurement units.
Because the developer collects the purchase price based on the whole house, the purchaser pays the property fee in the unit of the whole house.
Ai Hongqiang believes that the "Residential Project Specification" is not a sales management method, but an engineering technical specification. The calculation of "inside area" or "building area" is not directly related. If it is to be upgraded to a national standard and fully implemented, it needs to be revised. Relevant laws and regulations still have a long way to go.
It is worth noting that the reporter recently checked in a house purchase app and found that for new houses in many cities, the area displayed by clicking on them is all the floor area, while the area displayed in the downtown area of Chongqing is all the area inside the apartment.
It is understood that as early as June 2002, the "Regulations on the Management of Urban Real Estate Transactions in Chongqing Municipality" passed by the Standing Committee of the Chongqing People’s Congress required that: commercial houses are sold and pre-sold, based on the building area of the condominium. The warrant shall specify the shared location and facilities.
Does this mean that Chongqing has cancelled the public share?
Mr. Hu, a real estate agent in Shapingba District, Chongqing, told reporters that this regulation does not mean the cancellation of the public share.
"It is physically impossible to cancel public spaces such as entrance lobbies and elevator shafts. It can only be said that the public share is not included in the calculation of the house price, but in fact, it means that the total price has always been fixed. For example, the area of the house is fixed. The unit price may be 15,000 yuan, and the unit price of building area may be 13,000 yuan. According to regulations, new houses in Chongqing are priced according to the area inside the apartment, and second-hand houses are priced according to the building area. Therefore, second-hand houses seem to be more expensive than new houses. Much lower."
Although Chongqing still charges property fees and heating fees based on the total construction area, which is no different from other regions in the country, Yang Qinfa believes that Chongqing’s regulations still favor the protection of the interests of buyers who are in a disadvantaged position in real estate transactions. The pricing of the area inside the apartment is more open and transparent, which is more tangible and tangible for buyers.
However, many experts interviewed by reporters agreed that it is “difficult” to cancel the pooled area at the national level.
They proposed that if the shared area is abolished, real estate developers will suffer the greatest loss in the long run. If they can no longer obtain income from the shared area, the degree of emphasis on the shared area may be reduced while maintaining reasonable housing prices. Decrease, the community environment and the overall construction quality of houses may also be affected.
Since it is unlikely that the shared area will be cancelled directly under the current mode of living, how to solve the many problems that it brings?
In this regard, Yang Qinfa suggested that we can learn from the real estate management experience of other countries, and continue to ensure the quality of the use of shared area under the premise of reducing the burden on home buyers.
"For the management of the shared area, a step-by-step strategy should be adopted. First, under the premise that the shared area has not been cancelled, standardize the calculation of the shared area, ensure that the calculation method is open and transparent, the calculation results are clear, and the relevant supervision is improved. Mechanism to ensure that the cost of the shared area paid by the buyers is based on evidence, and the real estate business’s indiscriminate calculation of the shared area will be punished in a timely manner; The upper limit of the shared area of newly built residential buildings is forcing real estate developers and related parties to plan rationally when constructing houses, instead of increasing the shared area at will, infringing on the housing rights of buyers." Yang Qinfa said.
Zhao Xiuchi suggested that, if the market environment permits, the practice of calculating house prices based on the "used area in the suite" can be further implemented and promoted.
At the same time, it is also necessary to strictly implement the information disclosure system for public facilities, public areas and related charges by developers to ensure that buyers can truly understand the details of public areas before buying a house.
By strengthening supervision, standardizing third-party surveying and mapping agencies, and strict developers' liability for breach of contract, the rights and interests of many home buyers are truly protected.