Why fine decoration has become "surprise decoration"
Investigation on the current situation of fine decoration of new houses
● In recent years, under the background of vigorously advocating energy saving and loss reduction, low-carbon economy, reducing repeated decoration and secondary decoration, the proportion of refined decoration houses in the real estate market has increased, and the subsequent poor decoration quality, water seepage, Problems such as excessive formaldehyde are also emerging
● In many cases, refined decoration 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 shoddy, which directly leads to an increase in disputes over housing acquisition and rights protection
● The housing construction department will require the developer to commit to the decoration standard or value in the pre-sale plan before issuing the pre-sale permit.
If the development company violates the decoration commitment of the pre-sale plan and severely reduces the decoration standard, it will be punished accordingly
● At the beginning of the sale of finely decorated houses, the developer should ask the developer to list out the list of decoration standards, provide the brand, origin, specification, level, quantity, etc. of the main interior decoration materials and equipment of the house after delivery, and carry out the image evidence of the model house in the supervision department Preservation, protecting the rights and interests of home buyers from the source
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Intern Yang Yinan
Some time ago, Chen Xingxing (pseudonym), a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi, who had been busy with a day's work, returned home and was ready to cook a meal to reward himself.
As soon as he entered the kitchen, he was taken aback by the sight in front of him: the wall above the kitchen was leaking, the wall was peeled and cracked, and debris was scattered on the floor.
Since moving into this new home two years ago, Chen Xingxing has felt that it hasn't stopped very much-large areas of water leaking in the kitchen and bathroom, cracking and peeling of the walls, seriously affecting the quality of life.
Fine decoration has become "surprise decoration", and Chen Xingxing is not the only one who has this experience.
In recent years, under the background of vigorously advocating energy saving and loss reduction, low-carbon economy, reducing repeated decoration and secondary decoration, the proportion of refined decoration houses in the real estate market has increased, and the subsequent poor decoration quality, water seepage, and formaldehyde Problems such as exceeding the standard are also emerging in endlessly.
Why did the well-decorated house that I bought for worry-free and high-quality life become the source of trouble?
How to guarantee the quality of fine decoration?
How to protect rights in accordance with the law when there is a problem?
With these questions in mind, a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily conducted an investigation and interview.
The promised shelf life is five years
Less than a year of serious water leakage
In 2002, the former Ministry of Construction promulgated the "Implementation Rules for the Renovation of Commercial Residential Buildings in One Time", and refined decoration houses began to appear on the market.
In 2017, the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Construction Industry" made it clear that by 2020, the area of newly-built fully-furnished residential buildings will reach 30%.
Nowadays, in many big cities, fine decoration has become standard for new houses.
"One-stop installation, high cost performance, zero additional items, long warranty time, multiple inspections and acceptances" "Environmentally friendly materials, you can move in immediately after delivery"... In real estate sales advertisements, developers often give great comments on fine decoration Special book.
It was precisely because of this that Chen Xingxing decided to buy this well-decorated off-plan house developed by a well-known developer in Xi'an, because buying a well-decorated house reduces the steps of self-decoration and saves time and effort.
He recalled to reporters that the sales staff of the sales department before the subscription deliberately took him to see the model house.
"The decoration of the model house is very exquisite, whether it is the color matching of the walls or the layout design, it looks very comfortable. My family and I like it very much."
Chen Xingxing’s memory is still fresh. At that time, the developer said that the decoration cost was 1,000 yuan/square meter, which was cheaper than asking someone to do the decoration.
He is not without worries and doubts: Can the price of 1,000 yuan per square meter achieve the decoration effect claimed by the developer?
The sales staff’s words dispelled their worries. The sales staff said that because the developers have their own channels for purchasing decoration materials, they also purchase large quantities, so the price will naturally be much lower; and the developers promised that the warranty period of fine decoration is 5 years. The warranty period is also indicated in the purchase contract.
Unexpectedly, the troubles will come after less than a year of staying in.
“In the beginning, water leaked from the bathroom wall. As long as there was a bath, there would be water leakage. Later, I asked upstairs and downstairs and found that everyone has these problems, and they are on the same wall.” Chen Xingxing said.
Later, the kitchen also began to leak.
"As long as it rains, the kitchen roof will start to drip down, flow down the natural gas pipeline to the stove, and sometimes you can't even cook food." Chen Xingxing said, and found the video of the kitchen water leak on his mobile phone. According to the reporter, "the dripping water is very loud, especially in the dead of night, it is noisy that people can't sleep well."
"Since last year, other owners and I have repeatedly reported the water leakage problem to the community property and requested repairs. The property sent someone to inspect and concluded that the exterior wall was not waterproofed. After waiting for more than a year, So far, the problem has not been resolved." Chen Xingxing told reporters that because the residential property is owned by the developer, he also made a special complaint to the headquarters. The response he got was for further verification, and then there was no news.
All kinds of chaos exist for a long time
Many problems and harder to find
The reporter combed through public reports and found that disputes caused by fine decoration problems abound, and even some owners complained about fine decoration: closing the house means protecting rights.
In 2020, two hard-covered buildings in Nanning Poly’s leading city in Nanning, 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, The problem has not been solved for a long time.
The three phases of Chongqing Vanke Yulan Road are all hardcovered houses, and they will be delivered in October 2020. Many owners report that the ceiling of the bathroom of the house sees serious water, like a "drain hole"; the water pipes and waterproof materials are found to be of poor quality, floor leakage, The pipe size is also not correct.
Liu Ji (pseudonym) of Zhumadian, Henan knows how "surprised" the fine decoration is.
He bought a new house locally in 2018. After moving in for less than a year and a half, the floor has been cracked in large areas. In desperation, he had to find a decoration team to renovate. After removing the floor, he found that the water pipes and wires underneath were in a mess. The materials were also of poor quality, which made him "shocked" in a cold sweat.
For Tang Yu, the design director of a design company in Hunan, all kinds of chaos in fine decoration have long been a surprise.
He told reporters that although the owner will inspect the house first when accepting the house, it depends on the generality, such as whether there is water leakage, whether the doors and windows can be closed tightly, etc. As for the decoration details, materials, water and electricity cables, and environmental protection factors, the average person is It's hard to tell.
He introduced that excessive formaldehyde standards and substandard environmental protection coefficients are also common problems in well-decorated houses.
The main sources of formaldehyde are home improvement paint, latex paint and wood products.
Generally, home improvement will choose decoration materials with environmental protection labels such as E0 and E1. Latex paint will also choose types with less formaldehyde emission. However, in order to save costs, some developers may choose inferior materials, which is prone to the problem of excessive formaldehyde. .
"There are also some unscrupulous developers who use construction waste to backfill the sinking pool of the bathroom in the well-decorated house. The heavy backfill material can easily cause the waterproof layer of the sinking pool to crack. Over time, the bathroom will smell and leak, and there is still a risk of collapse. "He gave an example.
Zhao Peng, who is engaged in decoration supervision work in Beijing, revealed to reporters that in practice, the owners of the well-decorated house have complained about structural cracks in the house (ceiling), inadequate waterproofing of kitchens and bathrooms, hollow walls, and unsmooth opening and closing of doors and windows. strong.
"There are also developers cutting corners. For example, the high-priced stones in the model rooms are all replaced with ordinary stones, and the quality of the furniture is low, which is obviously different from the furniture displayed in the model rooms." Zhao Peng said, if the developer's model rooms are regarded as "Seller show", and the well-decorated house bought by the owner becomes a "buyer show".
"In the past two years, due to the cost and the real estate company's own reasons, various problems have occurred in the refined decoration of the house. Buyers must carefully review the decoration terms when subscribing." said Yan Yuejin, research director of the Think Tank Center of E-House Research Institute. The fine decoration should return to the "livable" orientation. It is necessary to realize the improvement of the decoration standard and prevent the chaos of the real estate company from increasing the price in disguised form by the decoration.
Reduce costs for benefits
High cost of rights protection and many compromises
In Tang Yu, who has been engaged in decoration design for a long time, the root cause of the problem of fine decoration is that some developers have reduced the cost to the extreme in pursuit of profit. The decoration price will definitely be compressed as much as possible in terms of cost."
He introduced that developers will "shop around" when looking for decoration teams. Developers want to make money from them, and decoration teams must also make money. Often they can only find profit space from the aspects of materials and construction period, and finally transfer the problem. To the buyers.
"In many cases, fine decoration 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 shoddy, which directly leads to an increase in disputes over housing acquisition and rights protection. "Yan Yuejin said.
Many people in the industry pointed out that once a fine decoration problem is discovered, there are not a few owners who compromise or even admit that they are unlucky. The reasons are:
On the one hand, due to the strict control of the price of newly-built commercial housing by the state, many cities have seen the phenomenon of inverted prices of commercial housing and stock housing. The so-called "upside down" means that the price of commercial housing is lower than the price of surrounding stock housing.
Under this circumstance, buyers feel that as long as they buy it, they earn money, and they don't pay much attention to the issue of fine decoration.
On the other hand, the cost of rights protection is too high.
There are problems with the house, such as water leakage, whether it is a house construction problem or a decoration problem. It is more difficult to divide responsibilities; it is also difficult to determine what decoration standards should correspond to different prices.
In addition, some home buyers are not very aware of rights protection and fail to save relevant evidence in time, which increases the difficulty of rights protection.
Zhang Song, a native of Henan who has long been engaged in front-line decoration work, told reporters: "Sometimes when we were working as a child, it was obvious that the quality of the house was poor, and the decoration was useless. But we would not ask any questions. Just do your own job well. After all, we rely on the developer to "eat"."
In this regard, Zhao Peng suggested that when signing a house purchase contract, buyers must write the decoration standards, grades and brands of materials used, environmental protection grades, warranty periods, identification of liability for compensation, exchanges, check-outs, etc. into the purchase as detailed as possible when signing the purchase contract. In the contract, check carefully one by one during the house inspection.
If disputes arise in the future, this can also be used as a basis for claims.
Adjust and improve management and control ideas
Strengthen supervision and law enforcement
In January 2019, the "Evaluation Standards for Fully Furnished Residential Buildings" were implemented.
At the same time, some cities have successively issued regulations that require developers not to demolish model houses within six months of delivering finely decorated houses, and conduct targeted supervision on the decoration standards and process.
Wang Shude, deputy director of the Legal Affairs Committee of the Beijing Real Estate Intermediary Industry Association, believes that the "Evaluation Standards for Full Decoration of Residential Buildings" is not a national mandatory standard, and it is difficult to promote it at present.
In his view, to change the chaos of fine decoration, the management and control of commodity housing prices should be further adjusted and improved.
In practice, due to the upward pressure on housing prices, some places regard filing as a means to control the housing prices and financial risks of new houses. This has led to the phenomenon that new houses cannot be sold even if the market is good. People bear the intermediary fee, the quality of decoration has shrunk, etc.) to increase profits.
"At the same time, we must strictly enforce the law." Wang Shude said, in fact, the relevant departments are not without supervision of the developer's fine decoration. The housing construction department will require the developer to commit to the decoration standard or value in the pre-sale plan before issuing the pre-sale permit. .
If the developer violates the decoration promise of the pre-sale plan and severely reduces the decoration standard, it will be punished accordingly.
"The problem of fine decoration is essentially a price problem. Lowering the decoration standard is an illegal act that violates the clear price tag of commercial housing or raises the price of commercial housing in disguise. Once this behavior is determined, the market supervision department can carry out price enforcement and require developers to correct and punish them. , So the next step is to strengthen law enforcement." Wang Shude said.
Yan Yuejin suggested that at the beginning of the sale of finely decorated houses, the developer should list the decoration standard list, provide the brand, origin, specification, level, quantity, etc. of the main interior decoration materials and equipment of the house after delivery, and conduct a model in the supervision department House image evidence preservation, to protect the rights and interests of home buyers from the source.
"From the perspective of developers, there is an obvious consideration of evading or reducing costs. Therefore, the problem of fine decoration is mostly related to the inadequate control of the quality of the real estate company's own products. When there is a problem in this type of field, it is often responsible for it. Smaller.” Yan Yuejin said, with the increase in the number of well-decorated houses built and delivered, it is indeed necessary to establish and improve relevant standards in the future. If necessary, specific policies on the supervision or planning of finely decorated houses need to be introduced for house transactions and house deliveries. For comparison in other aspects, it is even necessary to establish a star rating mechanism to classify fine decorations to prevent chaos in fine decorations.