Shanghai Elderly Unable to Obtain Property Certificate After Fully Paying for House for Ten Years House Sealed

An elderly couple in Shanghai purchased a house for retirement with full payment of 6.6 million yuan, but for the past ten years they have not been able to obtain property ownership certificate. Now, as the developer has gone bankrupt, their house has been seized, and the elderly couple had no choice but to file a lawsuit in hopes of seeking justice.

On April 3rd, a news about “Unable to Obtain Property Ownership Certificate After Ten Years of Full Payment, Eventually Seized” went viral.

According to reports from Kankan News, Pong and her husband were born in Shanghai, but both had Hong Kong residency permits. Twenty years ago, after retiring, they decided to spend their retirement years in Shanghai.

In 2016, Pong and her husband sold their only house in Shanghai and paid over 6.6 million yuan in full for a 120-square-meter newly built apartment in Zhengrongfu Community. After the payment, the couple received the purchase invoice, signed the commercial housing presale contract with the developer, and completed the online signing procedures.

In early 2018, the house was officially delivered, and the couple smoothly moved into their new home. However, six months later, Pong was informed by the real estate transaction center that they were unable to process the property ownership certificate. Before signing the purchase contract, Shanghai required foreigners to pay one year of social security or personal income tax when purchasing a property. Since the elderly couple had retired when they returned to Shanghai, they had not made such payments. In desperation, Pong’s daughter in Shanghai helped them find a company to affiliate with and paid one year of personal income tax.

However, after waiting for a year and going back to the transaction center, they were told that the additional payment was futile…

The issue raised the question of how the couple managed to complete the online signing if they did not meet the property purchasing requirements. In response, the staff at the Qingpu District Real Estate Transaction Center explained that the developer did not submit the couple’s documents for pre-qualification to the transaction center before the signing, bypassing the qualification review since the couple had paid in full without a loan.

The reason for the seizure of Pong’s house was due to the parent company of the developer, Zhengrong Group, facing bankruptcy lawsuits, with many assets under its name being successively seized. One supplier sued the developer for overdue payments, leading to the Qingpu Court seizing Pong’s house in November 2024 as the property rights were still under the developer’s name.

In response, a real estate expert indicated that there was an obvious fault in the developer’s lack of verifying qualifications in the transaction process. At the same time, he believed that there were certain loopholes in the online signing system of the real estate transaction center at that time.

Upon discovering the house’s seizure, Pong and her family promptly contacted a lawyer to handle the matter. Subsequently, the lawyer submitted a property preservation objection application to the Qingpu District Court in accordance with relevant laws.

The law stipulates that if the debtor sells all their properties that require transfer registration to a third party, the court cannot seize, detain, or freeze the properties if the third party has paid the full price, taken actual possession, and is not at fault.

However, after over a month, there was still no conclusion on whether the seizure could be revoked.

The news has sparked a heated discussion among netizens.

“Writer Hua Biao” commented: “Now they’ve lost both the house and the money.”

“Zhang Huiming’s Bar Moderator” also remarked: “No fault found on the part of the elderly couple.”

“Dream Never Came to Xie Qiao” questioned: “Why was a house that had already been signed online seized?”

“yjjbp77” lamented: “The individual has lost again, this is not an isolated case.”

However, according to a report by The Paper on March 19, a similar case involved Zhao, from Dezhou City, Shandong Province, who purchased a property A developed by a certain real estate company in March 2016, paid in full, and also paid property fees, waste disposal fees, among other costs, receiving receipts from the company and possessing the house for years.

In 2023, due to a contractual dispute between a certain elevator company and the real estate company, Zhao’s property A was among those seized in the pre-litigation property preservation. Following the enforced execution, Zhao’s objection was rejected, prompting them to sue the court to exclude the forced execution.

After a trial, Zhao was granted the right to exclude enforced execution of property A, thus retaining ownership of the property.

Legal professionals reminded the public to be cautious when purchasing properties, promptly complete the relevant property registration procedures to avoid unnecessary legal risks. If unable to complete the property registration, they should properly preserve contracts, payment receipts, and other documents. In case of similar disputes, one can file an objection to the execution according to the law to safeguard their rights.