Beginning the crime routine of housing intermediary: behind the zero intermediary fee, the black intermediary and the intermediary seller sing double-action
The Rule of Law Daily reported on March 28 that with the rapid development of the market economy, the real estate agency industry has continued to grow and play an important role in the process of housing transactions, which is related to the smooth realization of the people's "dream of living in peace".
However, criminals have also begun to focus on this area. In recent years, criminal cases involving housing intermediaries have gradually entered the field of criminal trials.
At the press briefing on criminal cases involving housing intermediaries held by the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People’s Court, Vice President Xin Shangmin said that through investigations into relevant criminal cases, it was found that the causes of such cases were relatively abundant, involving criminal crimes involving housing intermediaries. The case poses a threat to residents' normal handling of house leasing and trading business, and at the same time has a major impact on the healthy and orderly development of the real estate agency industry, which requires urgent attention.
Beware of black intermediaries behind zero intermediary fees
"After analyzing the relevant first-instance cases concluded by our court and the courts in the jurisdiction in the past five years, it was found that the cases involving extortion accounted for 40%, and the cases involving contract fraud accounted for 28%." Xin Shangmin said, housing transactions include housing sales and housing. In the field of leasing, from the analysis of the amount of money involved, the amount of money involved in the field of house sales is huge, ranging from 400,000 to 12 million yuan, with a per capita loss of as high as 1.38 million yuan, which has a serious impact on the victim’s family life; the amount of money involved in the field of housing leasing Relatively low, the per capita loss is 11,800 yuan, but the indirect loss of the victim, especially the mental loss is huge.
Cases involving extortion are mostly in the field of housing leasing. Perpetrators often use methods such as publishing low-priced housing information or promising zero intermediary fees to induce victims to sign rental contracts, and then force the victims to pay additional fees through verbal threats, insults, and harassment. If the tenant does not pay, it creates a false appearance of breach of contract and hires thugs to force the victim to move out of the house and refuse to refund the rent; some “black intermediaries” threaten formal intermediary companies to monopolize the sale and leasing of second-hand houses in specific communities. Or both buyers and sellers ask for cooperation fees and benefits.
In the extortion case of Liu and others, after the defendant Liu bought the business license of an intermediary company, he rented out multiple houses and promised zero intermediary fees.
After the victim moved into the house, the gang members used verbal threats, insults, harassment, etc. to force the victim to pay additional fees such as property fees, heating fees, and intermediary fees, and determined that the victim had "breached" in various ways and forced the victim to move out of the house. Live in the house, and refuse to refund the remaining rent.
In the end, the defendant Liu was sentenced to extortion by the court.
In this regard, the judge suggested that the supervisory authority should strengthen the standardized management of housing intermediary companies, establish a blacklist system, and publicize it to the public; lessees should try their best to choose formal intermediary companies or online leasing platforms, and don’t try to low intermediary fees. The black intermediary’s acts of extortion shall be reported to the police in time.
Beware of the drama intermediary and black-hearted sellers singing double reeds
After investigation by the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court, it was found that most of the crimes in the field of housing sales were contract fraud, and the field of second-hand housing sales was the hardest hit area.
On the one hand, affected by national policies, the housing transaction market in Beijing and other first-tier cities is dominated by second-hand houses, with a small stock of new houses; on the other hand, second-hand housing transaction procedures are cumbersome, property rights are complex, and risks are high, and there is room for crime.
For example, some buyers find that the house has been sold to others by the owner or the house is restricted or forbidden to be transferred after paying the down payment, so they suffer huge losses.
In the case of Wan Mou and Qiao Mou’s fraud, the homeowner Wan Mou and the intermediary Qiao Mou concealed the property in the process of signing and fulfilling the house purchase contract with the victim Wang in the name of selling a property in Chaoyang District, Beijing. The fact that they have been sold to Zhu and Chen successively used forged civil rulings and false supervision accounts to defraud the victim Wang for buying a house of 5.1 million yuan.
After a court trial, the defendants Wan Mou and Qiao Mou were sentenced to the crime of contract fraud.
The Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court found that in judicial practice, there are many cases where intermediaries work with the seller to harm the interests of the buyer.
Some actor concealed the fact that they had resigned from the housing intermediary company, and used the trust of their old customers to commit fraud; some actor helped the seller conceal the defects of the housing property rights after collecting the benefits, colluding with the seller to defraud the buyer's money; yes Although the perpetrators were employees of formal intermediary companies, they used the victim’s desire for low intermediary fees to commit crimes in collaboration with "black intermediaries".
In this regard, Zhang Yuan, a judge of the Second Criminal Division of the court, reminded that housing intermediary companies should establish strict rules and regulations, severely punish intermediaries who violate regulations, carefully verify housing listings, and avoid property rights defects in transaction houses.
Buyers should stay vigilant, verify the identity of the housing intermediary and the status of the property rights of the housing in a timely manner, sign online as soon as possible, lock the housing status, and effectively avoid selling more than one house.
The transfer should be remitted to the fund custody account
In addition to the high risk points mentioned above, the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court also found that some intermediaries used the name of fund custody to allow victims to transfer money to their personal accounts, or fabricated the qualifications to sell houses as an agent or purchase the qualifications for relocation, etc., through forgery. Fake documents or even court documents to defraud money.
In the case of the defendant Huang’s fraud, Wu and Ru purchased a house under the name of Cheng with a total price of 3.48 million yuan under Huang’s intermediary introduction.
Because Wu and Ru were not eligible to purchase houses, it was agreed that the real estate should be held by Ru’s mother Li.
However, Huang deliberately committed a crime when he represented Li in handling the balance payment business, in order to embezzle the final payment of the house for online gambling. When Li had handled a special fund custody account, he falsely claimed that the transfer was convenient and asked Li to buy a house. The money of more than 2 million yuan was transferred to the bank account under his own name in multiple pens, and Huang later used the money for gambling.
After a court hearing, Huang was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to punishment.
Zhang Yuan reminded that housing intermediary companies should strictly observe corporate reputation and regard high-quality industry reputation as their lifeline; intermediaries should also strictly abide by professional ethics and treat both buyers and sellers equally.
Buyers must remit house purchase funds through third-party fund custody accounts and other fund supervision methods, carefully verify the authenticity of the fund supervision accounts, and never transfer money directly to personal accounts to prevent being deceived.
Reporter Xu Weilun, correspondent Yu Xiaohang