How will our houses be disposed after 70-year land use right expires? Recently, Guidelines of the State Council on Improving Protection of Property System and Better Protection of Property Rights has been published, which proposes the study of legal arrangements for renewal of land use right after expiry with housing construction land, and draws public attention. With the Guidelines released, how is our anxiety to land right renewal relieved? How will we tackle the conflict of inconsistency between house property and land right as soon as possible?

How will our houses be disposed after the land use right expires?

Early this year, Yang Guoguang, who has been working in Harbin for five years, bought a commercial house by housing fund loan. It's a small apartment, only 50 square meters in area, but he's satisfied for owning a home. By then, he was not considering the end of the house after 70 years of use.

In April, the nation was stirred by a case of expired use right of housing construction land in Wenzhou, Yang Guoguang was not exceptional. One citizen in Wenzhou bought a second-hand house, and found in handling property ownership certificate that, he was not eligible to become the transferee due to expiry of the land use right attached to the property. Document indicated 20 years of land use right, and land use certificate was expired. Overnight, renewal of land use right after expiry, justification of additional premium etc. became hot topics among the public.

"Regardless of 20 years or 70 years, once the land use right expires, how will my house be disposed, and what can I do?" Yang was not assured when thinking of the case. By consulting a lawyer, he was informed that, maximum term of land use right conveyance in China is 70 years, the land is owned by the state upon expiry, while the building on the land is the house owner's property.

The case of Wenzhou is not exceptional, and similar cases are reported in many domestic cities, including Shenzhen, Qingdao and Chongqing. In Qingdao, term of use right of certain residential land is only 20 or 30 years, and the term of some residential lands has been expired.

Some netizens argue that, expiry of land use right involves immediate interest of thousands of households, to which responsible government authorities should attach great importance, and it be properly settled from legislative source.

Study detailed rules of the law on renewal of house property use right, is "assurance" to the public

For most people, houses are their most important household assets. However, it's a legal "fuzzy point" with regard to renewal of property ownership after expiry of land use right attached to the house.

Wang Wenming, Director of Heilongjiang Wenming Law Firm, introduced that, back to the time of legislating of Property Law, treatment of house property after expiry of 70 years was debated publicly. Finally, it's stipulated in the Property law, Article 149, that "the term of the right to use construction land for dwelling houses shall be renewed automatically when it expires". However, due to lack of detailed rules in the legal provisions, and absence of clear regulations on way of renewal, rate of additional premium etc., the public is uncertain about the expectation of permanent ownership of residential house.

The problems regarding expiry of land use right have been explored in the level of local governments, but lack of top-level design.

Jiang Ping, tenured Prof of CUPL, introduced that automatic renewal referred to in Property Law is a major problem, for which united legal interpretation is required to the nation. This problem should not be addressed by local government, or else more problems will be created due to irreconcilable local regulations.

Many experts and netizens are positive toward the Opinions for better protection of property ownership, and take it for respect and response to public opinion. As China's first top-level design for property protection in the name of central government, it's explicitly stipulated in the Opinions that "we should study legal arrangements for renewal of land use right after expiry with housing construction land, to promote good and stable expectation of the whole society to permanent protection of citizen's property."

Chi Fulin, Director of China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development (CIRD), introduced that, people with immovable property hold on perseverance; "automatic renewal" is specified in Property Law, and study of legal arrangements of renewal of land use right after expiry is proposed in the Opinions, with emphasis on good and stable expectation. Though no particular provisions are established, it's very important that it guides the direction toward system design in favor of property protection.

Establish "people-oriented" detailed rules

Legal experts suggest that, renewal of land use right is an unavoidable problem, which we should treat with special care. On one hand, taking the opportunity of the Opinions on property protection, interpretation of subsequent detailed rules should be included in the agenda as early as possible, to set up particular legal footnote, and eliminate "fuzzy space". On the other hand, top-level design should be performed by fundamental principle of "people-oriented" attitude, to enhance public confidence to related national systems.

Yang Lixin, Director of RUC Research Center for Civil and Commercial Jurisprudence introduced that, the key for renewal of land use right is payment of renewal fee. How to renew? Is it paid or free? Two options: one is free renewal, for the benefit of the owner; the other is fee-to-tax, that is, no transfer fee is charged, but the owner of permanent right of construction land use should pay tax to the nation.

"Give the benefit to the owner for free," is the voice of Prof Qu Wenyong of School Of Government, Heilongjiang University, who argues that in buying house, the owner 's house payment has included fair part of compensation for obtaining land use right, namely, the owner is granted permanent use right. From this point of view, the citizen should be given the benefit, which is conforming to the Opinions requiring "good and stable expectation of permanent protection of citizen's property".

Netizens call for legislature to formulate detailed legal interpretation on the renewal of land use right after expiry as soon as possible, proposed principle is automatic renewal without charging extra cost to the house owner, or fair renewal fee ifit so stipulates.

Many experts suggest the model of transformation from lump-sum cost for land use right to regular payment of low tax rate, an explorative approach of automatic renewal.