Text: "Legal Person" magazine, reporter Li Yunshi.
The Reality and Future of Self-Financing to Rebuild Residential Buildings
Did you hear that? Hundreds of residents in a community in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province have demolished and rebuilt their old houses at their own expense. On January 22, in a street in Xicheng District, Beijing, two old gentlemen chatted while walking. The Hangzhou reconstruction community in the old population is located in the center of Hangzhou Zhegong New Village Community, the community by 548 residents raised 500 million yuan to demolish and rebuild, the project has recently made new progress.
The residents of the community raised 500 million yuan to rebuild their homes
If some conditions can be met, the redevelopment of old houses with the residents' own funds is a model that can be emulated. On January 20, Yan Yue, director of the think tank center of Shanghai Yiju Real Estate Research Institute, said in an interview with a reporter from "Legal Person".
According to public reports, there are 14 residential buildings in Zhegong New Village, 13 of which were built before 2000. A few years ago, four residential buildings were successively identified as Class C dangerous houses, and the main body of the house was made of prefabricated perforated slabs and strip foundations, with no seismic fortifications and many potential safety hazards.
On January 22, Zuo Yongzhi, director of the China Building Standard Design and Research Institute, told reporters that the technical activities of investigation, testing, analysis and evaluation of the safety and usability of existing industrial or civil buildings are mainly based on the "Civil Building Reliability Appraisal Standard (GB 50292-2015)" (hereinafter referred to as the "standard"), from the safety of the structure to evaluate whether the house meets the requirements of the code, the appraisal process includes determining the purpose and scope of the commission, consulting data, on-site testing, Data processing, bearing capacity check and appraisal rating, the rating divides the building into three levels: components, sub-units and appraisal units. If the rating is C, it means that the safety of the house does not meet the standard requirements, significantly affects the overall load, and measures should be taken, and there may be very few measures that must be taken in time; The rating is D, which means that the safety seriously does not meet the requirements of the standard, seriously affects the overall load, and immediate measures must be taken. At this time, there is no essential difference between level C and level D, except that the measures required by level D are more urgent.
Although some houses in Zhegong New Village Community were rated as C-level, they did not meet the previous old renovation and demolition led by **. Until May 2023, Hangzhou issued the "Implementation Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting Urban Renewal", requiring the elimination of potential safety hazards, the improvement of functional facilities, and the improvement of living quality for dilapidated buildings, old communities, and existing residential areas, providing a new reason for rectification in Zhegong New Village. At the same time, plans for residents to build houses out of their own pockets are on the agenda.
In response to the plan for residents to rebuild their houses out of their own pockets, the relevant person of the housing and urban-rural development department of Gongshu District of Hangzhou publicly provided a data: the original housing area of residents is funded by 1,350 yuan, of which less than 53 ** is calculated according to 53. Each household can expand the area up to 20, and the expanded part will be funded according to the market appraisal price, about 34,520 yuan (slightly fluctuating according to different floors, house types, orientation and other factors). There are a total of 548 households in Zhegong New Village, with a total investment of nearly 400 million yuan in terms of area. In addition, according to the reconstruction plan, more than 400 underground parking spaces will be built in Zhegong New Village, each of which is priced at more than 20 yuan, and a total of about 100 million yuan in sales can be obtained, totaling 500 million yuan.
At present, all 13 eligible buildings in Zhegong New Village have been demolished, and the pile foundation project was completed at the end of January. On January 11, the Zhejiang Provincial Housing and Urban-Rural Construction Work Conference required that the experience and practices of the renovation of old communities such as Zhegong New Village be summarized, and the pilot project of independent renewal of old urban communities should be carried out.
It is difficult for residents to build their own houses
Residents pay out of their own pockets to rebuild buildings is an emerging way to renovate old and dilapidated houses and urban renewal, and there are only a handful of communities that have successfully practiced it. On January 23, Wang Yuchen, director of the Real Estate Law Research Association of the Beijing Law Society and director of the Beijing Jinsu Law Firm, told reporters that there are difficulties in the start and reconstruction of residents' self-raised buildings. In terms of start-up, the main difficulty lies in the unification of the opinions of the owners.
1. Raising funds for reconstruction.
Wang Yuchen introduced, generally to be rebuilt community belongs to the old dilapidated housing community, the community construction time is longer, the relative lack of community committees and other community autonomous organizations, the daily unified organization and management of the community owners is difficult, and the self-raising way to rebuild the community needs to gather the strength of all owners, both the need for all owners to carry out preliminary planning for the reconstruction of the community, and on this basis need to obtain the consent of all owners.
According to Article 278 of the Civil Code and other relevant provisions, the reconstruction and reconstruction of buildings and their ancillary facilities shall be subject to the consent of more than three-quarters of the owners of the exclusive part participating in the voting and more than three-quarters of the owners participating in the voting. In the process of the overall reconstruction of the community, it not only involves the reconstruction of the common part, but also includes the demolition and reconstruction of the exclusive part of each owner, and whether and how to rebuild the exclusive part of each owner can only be decided by the owner who can independently express his intention, and others have no right to interfere and deprive it. Therefore, the preliminary planning of community redevelopment and the need to obtain the unanimous consent of all owners are a major difficulty.
"Even if the owners of the community agree to rebuild, it is difficult to agree on self-financing, and the fundraising process takes a long time," Wang said. Wang Yuchen said that in the process of installing elevators in old communities, it often happens that the owners who have agreed to the renovation refuse to contribute because of the payment problem, and the overall reconstruction of the community will only be more than the installation of elevators. "The renovation of Zhegong New Village community requires an average contribution of about 1 million yuan per household, and there will be financial pressure on each owner, and the raising of funds is naturally a relatively long process. Therefore, it is conceivable that it is difficult to start the redevelopment of the community in the form of self-financing by the owners. ”
Yan Yuejin also said that the whole-process supervision of the construction, completion and funding of reconstruction is one of the difficulties in imitating the model of Zhejiang Gongxin Village. "The owners unanimously agree and the redevelopment funds are in place is not a sufficient condition for the community to implement the reconstruction, after all, the community reconstruction is a large-scale construction project, and the owners can not build at will, not only to meet the requirements of urban planning, but also to carry out the corresponding project work on the community reconstruction project. Yan Yuejin said that planning and design, obtaining construction permits for construction projects, completing civil air defense and fire protection in the community, and handling completion acceptance procedures, etc., not only need the guidance and assistance of relevant departments, but also need to introduce corresponding design units, construction units, survey units, etc. for specific design, construction and supervision.
In the whole process of reconstruction, how to ensure that the reconstruction funds are used properly and appropriately, seek the assistance of relevant departments, and introduce a similar supervision system for the pre-sale funds of newly built commercial housing to supervise the self-raised funds, so as to ensure that the reconstruction funds raised by the owners can be used effectively, so as to promote the implementation of the reconstruction. Yan Yuejin said.
The old housing market is large and the risk of self-construction is high
According to data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, as of May 2019, 170,000 old urban communities had been reported to be renovated. After the redevelopment of the Zhegong New Village community was launched, some residents in other areas wanted to learn from the plan. In this regard, Wang Yuchen said: "The practice of rebuilding the community of Zhegong New Village is indeed an emerging way of rebuilding and renewing old and dilapidated houses, but it is not only difficult to start and implement, but also has certain legal risks. ”
Zhegong New Village Community under construction Data**.
It is understood that the reconstruction project of Zhegong New Village Community will be launched in April 2023, and the construction of the pile foundation and basement enclosure will be officially started on November 28 of that year. Wang Yuchen believes that there will be many problems before the project is officially delivered.
Wang Yuchen said that although some regions have issued relevant documents, if the model is to be promoted nationwide, the improvement of special laws and regulations is indispensable. There should be corresponding norms for the whole process of self-financing and reconstruction of old residential areas, such as setting up relevant committees to improve the efficiency of obtaining the opinions of property owners, and introducing a mediation mechanism if some owners do not agree. For the reconstruction fund, a special supervision account will be introduced, which will be supervised by the relevant departments throughout the process. In addition, for the reconstruction of old and dilapidated houses in this way, supporting policies can also be introduced, such as providing special funds and simplifying the corresponding approval process.
Wang Yuchen believes that at the legal level, only by taking the project as an exemplary model can we further improve the relevant legal provisions, form a standardized process, and then comprehensively promote it, so as to better ensure the universality and feasibility of the model. In addition, although self-raised funds to rebuild the community can improve housing safety and community quality, during the validity period of property rights, the owner will raise his own funds to rebuild the house after buying the house, which will cause greater economic pressure on the owner. Therefore, further strengthening the quality supervision of newly built houses and improving the quality of new houses can avoid the corresponding legal risks caused by reconstruction at the source, and at the same time can reduce the economic pressure of owners and better protect the rights and interests of owners.
Edited by Qu Yang.
Editor-in-charge: Hui Ningning.
Proofreading by Zhang Bo Zhang Xuehui.
* Legal Person Magazine, Issue 240, February 2024.