Real Estate

China to update property rules to aid anti-corruption drive

Gabriel Wildau
WATCH LIVE
Danny Hu | Flickr | Getty Images

China issued new rules on Monday requiring owners of real estate and other unmovable assets to register their holdings, giving authorities a powerful new weapon against corruption.

The State Council, China's cabinet, has ordered the land ministry to establish a unified registration system for real estate, the lack of which has enabled corrupt officials to stash their wealth in real estate with little risk of discovery.

The system will also aid the rollout of a property tax, which is being tested in the cities of Shanghai and Chongqing.

Much Chinese property is subject to registration but records are dispersed among many different agencies, hindering authorities' ability to identify how much property an individual controls.

Are Beijing's property measures working?
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Are Beijing's property measures working?

The latest rules do not specify whether the planned database will be accessible to the public, a step many anti-corruption advocates say is necessary to maximize its impact.

Plans for a centralized system have circulated since at least 2010 but opposition from local officials has stalled implementation. The new rules take effect on March 1, when local governments must begin the process of building their registration system. It remains unclear when new registrations under the system will begin.

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Land minister Jiang Daming said in March that China would need three years to establish a unified registration system for real estate and four years to create an information platform to manage the data. In addition to buildings, the rules will cover land, maritime property and forests.

President Xi Jinping, who took power in late 2012, has overseen a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that has already netted hundreds of government officials, military officers and corporate executives. He promised to pursue both "tigers and flies", a reference to corrupt officials at all levels.

Read MoreChinese corruption worse, despite drive: Report

Chinese netizens have lapped up details of officials found to own dozens of apartments. A bank vice-president from Shaanxi, sardonically nicknamed "Sister House", owned 41 flats in Beijing, according to police. "Uncle House", a district official in Guangzhou who headed the "city management" department, a quasi-police force that deals with beggars, street vendors and other petty offenders, owned 22 apartments.

Investigators probing Zhou Yongkang, the former domestic security tsar who is the most senior party official charged with corruption in the history of the People's Republic, have seized hundreds of apartments, along with millions of dollars in cash and foreign currency, gold bullion and equity stakes in hundreds of companies.