Focus on real estate stacking: the ancient one-house sale.Compared with the inheritance disputes of houses and land, the trial of "stacking sales" disputes is much simpler. "Stacked sale", also known as "overlapping" transaction, is equivalent to the "one house and two sales" in real estate transactions. In the "Qingming Collection", there are special entries for "overlapping", and there are some non-overlapping transactions, but in essence they are still disputes that occur in the course of real estate and land transactions.
Three cases from the Song and Ming dynasties are examples:
The first case is contained in the "overlapping" article of "Household Marriage Door: Illegal Transactions" in volume 9 of the "Qingming Collection", and the facts of the case are to the effect that in the first month of the first year of Chunyou in the Southern Song Dynasty, Wang Yizhi pawned the foundation of his garden house to Xu Kejian and Shu Yuanxiu. Shu Yuanxiu held the family separation certificate approved by Xu Kejian's family, and Xu Kejian had a contract issued by Wang Yizhi's father, Wang Yuanxi. After confronting, it was confirmed that the deed was not forged, and Xu Kejian obtained the property, while Shu Yuanxiu could not obtain it. Wang Yizhi's behavior is a duplicate transaction of "one thing, two codes".
The law of the Song Dynasty stipulated: "If the pawn sells the land and makes the creditor profit by discounting the land to repay the debt, the property shall be returned to the owner, and the money shall not be recovered." In addition, "Whoever repeatedly pawns his property and dwelling shall be punished with a hundred rods, and the tooth man shall be guilty of the same crime." ”
Final verdict: Shu Yuanxiu's transaction was illegal, and the housing industry involved in the case was returned to the possession and control of the original pawn Xu Kejian, and his contract certificate was cancelled and invalidated and attached to the case file, and Xu Kejian's contract certificate was returned. Wang Yizhi's repeated transactions, Chen Sicong knew about it, and he was punished with 100 canes in accordance with the law.
The second case was recorded in the "Qingming Collection", volume 5, "Under the Household Marriage Door, Fighting for Business", with the title "The Property is Sold to the Person's Pretense of Surrender". The case mainly involved Mo Shiming's three sons: Mo Rujing, Mo Ruxun and Mo Rujiang. Before Mo Shiming's death, he divided his property into three equal parts and signed the family separation document. In addition to the father's signature, the three brothers also signed each other to confirm as evidence.
Later, Mo Shiming bought fields in Huangdakun, Baizhutong and other places, as well as mulberry roots, silk cloth and other properties. It is clearly recorded in the family separation document: "In the future, all property will be divided into three parts, and it will be divided equally to Mo Ruxun, Mo Rujing, and Mo Rujiang to take charge, and no disputes shall arise without authorization." It is worth noting that neither of these two separation documents mentions the name of "Mo Rushan".
In the seventh year of Jiading, Mo Rujiang (in fact, Zhou You fraudulently used the name of "Mo Rushan") transferred the land property of Baizhutong to Wang Xingzhi under the name of Wang Inspector, and the contract was sealed by the government and took charge of the field. However, in August of the ninth year of Jiading, a man who called himself "Mo Rushan" (i.e., Zhou You) filed a lawsuit with the government, claiming that Mo Rujiang had sold his property and demanded its return.
The government immediately launched an investigation and found that the original contract for the sale of land and property of "Mo Rushan" stated: "This is the property obtained by my family, which is distributed and allocated by my father Mo Shiming." In addition, the contract also emphasized: "There is no concealment and deception of the elders and juniors, and there are no disputes with the close branches of the family and outsiders." If there is any ambiguity, it will be handled at the sole responsibility of the person who sold the property. Considering these clear and unambiguous provisions, what are the grounds for the "Mo Rushan" lawsuit? The judge was puzzled by this.
After an in-depth trial, Mo Rujiang confessed: "At that time, when I made a deal with Wang Xingzhi, I entrusted Zhou You, a person who knew each other, to sign the contract in the name of 'Mo Rushan'. "The judge held that although people may not be able to write the contract in person when making a transaction, the signature is a crucial part and can not be replaced by someone else. Since "Mo Rushan" is not a co-owner of the property, this means that Mo Rujiang ** asked Zhou You to sign on his behalf when he entered into the sales contract, which shows that he had bad intentions at the beginning of the conclusion of the sales contract.
Wang Xingzhi and Mo Rujiangyuan are cousins and trust each other, so they are not aware of the fraud. And Mo Rujiang was also secretly happy, thinking that his plan had succeeded.
The final verdict was: Mo Rujiang and "Mo Rushan" (i.e., Zhou You) were each sentenced to 100 canes. As for the land that had been sold, it was decided that Wang Xingzhi, the owner of the property, should continue to be in charge of the cultivation in accordance with the original contract and report it to the embassy for execution.
The third case occurred in Guangdong during the Ming Dynasty. In Yan Junyan's "Mengshui Zhai Cunmu" two engraved and three volumes of "Fighting for the House, Tao Yaozhi and Other Staffs", a dispute over the sale and purchase of a house is recorded. From this article, we can clearly see the difference between pawn sale and absolute sale in real estate transactions, as well as the two operations of "sighing" and "washing".
The background of this case is that Wen Biyu's nephew, Ting Jian, owns a house on Ho Pan Street. He "sold" the house to Tao Yaozhi in accordance with the law in exchange for six hundred taels of silver. But later, Wen Biyu wanted to redeem the house because of financial difficulties, but Tao Yaozhi refused to back down. As a result, a dispute arose between the two parties, and eventually went to court.
In this case, we can see some of the characteristics of the ancient land house trade. The ownership, use, and management rights and interests of the farmhouse can be divided. Therefore, in the process of land transactions, a variety of transaction forms have emerged, such as pawns, tenants, rents, live sales, absolute sales, and price searches. Due to the special nature of pawn sale can redeem the sold farmhouse, the seller often pawns the farmhouse due to temporary poverty, hoping to redeem it again in the future. However, if there is no explicit statement in the deed that the descendants of the seller of the farmhouse still demand redemption several generations after the farmhouse has changed hands, the pawn at that time has already regarded the property as his own, and the dispute continues.
The outcome of the trial in this case was: if Wen Biyu was able to redeem the house, he needed to prepare a ransom of 600 taels; If it cannot be redeemed, Tao Yaozhi is required to pay 100 taels of washing silver to buy out the house completely. As for the problem of heavy interest and debt, it is like a fish voluntarily swallowing bait, and can only sigh secretly, unable to say anything to others. Each side played fifty boards to punish Tao Yaozhi's stinginess and his stupidity. At the same time, the verdict was reviewed in detail and Tao Yaozhi was required to return the house.
This reserved right of pawn (right of sale) is beneficial to the pawn or seller because they have the right of unconditional redemption. However, this is detrimental to the pawn and the buyer, because after believing that the property is their own, they also have to pay "ti silver" or "wash silver", and the difference between the purchase price and the purchase price, although incalculable, usually has to be overpaid. "Chinese attach great importance to filial piety and reputation, and although ancestral property is not the greatest unfilial piety, it is also a sign of the decline of the family, and the reputation is ruined more than this, so we must try our best to avoid it. As a result, people created the canonization system to solve the urgent need. Because the pawn is a disguised **, it does not give up ownership, but also retains the opportunity to redeem, and at the same time can meet the required amount (the pawn price is often close to the selling price), and it does not live up to the name of sale, but the fact of selling. It can be seen that the system of redemption is inseparable from the ancient Chinese's filial piety. However, because of the emphasis on filial piety and good name, it has led to more "damage to reputation" lawsuits contrary to its original intention, which may not have been foreseen by the ancients who founded this system.