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Opinion / Op-Ed Contributors

'Houses with limited property rights' pose a real problem

By Wang Juelin (China Daily) Updated: 2013-12-10 06:40

But their hopes are unfounded. By allowing parts of the rural land to enter the market, the plenary aimed at protecting rural residents' property rights, making it easy for them to get loans to use rural land to its full potential for development. This is totally different from "legalizing" houses with limited property rights.

The Constitution and the Land Management Law both state that the use of the country's land is strictly controlled, and the person using it must fulfill its designated purpose and protect land resources, especially agricultural land. And the plenary has not hinted at lifting the control.

Therefore, the houses with limited property rights will remain illegal even after the reform. As a matter of fact, law enforcement officers demolished 13,500 square meters of such houses in Beijing's Changping district on Dec 3.

But demolishing all such houses will render a lot of people homeless. And turning a blind eye to their existence will hurt the credibility of the State as well as pose a threat to owners because of lack of quality control in and improper maintenance of such houses. So what is the best way to deal with the problem?

For one, local governments have to enforce the regulations more strictly and prevent the building of more such houses. Also, the authorities should carry out a comprehensive survey to gather all the necessary data and use them to make a detailed reform plan for different types of houses with limited property rights.

Houses with limited property rights could be "legalized", but not in the near future. The process will be long and require changes in the dual land-use system, transfer of rural construction land strictly through legislation and, most importantly, protection of farmers' interests and the country's agricultural land. With farmers' rights fully protected and their assets being traded in the same market as urban residents, the problem of houses with limited property rights could be solved in the long run.

The author is a researcher of Policy Research Center, affiliated to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

(China Daily 12/10/2013 page9)

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