an effective way to bypass real estate purchase restriction on foreigners
Nov 01, 2011

an effective way to bypass real estate purchase restriction on foreigners

As we all know, foreigners are restricted to purchase real estate property in China. Now if your spouse is a local Chinese person (take Shanghai as example, you have a Shanghai husband or wife), now you can buy as many property as you wish so long as you have sufficient cash.

A couple of days ago, China National Administration of Taxation issued a new circular saying that where a spouse turns his or her pre-marriage real property into community property or co-owned properties by adding the other spouse’s name on the title deed, deed tax is exempted. Under an old circular, deed tax is also exempted if a co-owned maritial real property is agreed to be owned by one spouse upon divorce.

Given that, a foreigner that cannot buy property is now able to buy as many as he or she wants by doing the following:

Assuming a foreigner that is not qualified to buy a property at all is married to Shanghainese who has one or more apartments, during marriage, they can apply to transfer all the properties into the name of foreign spouse without paying any taxes. If the foreign spouse wants more properties, he or she can then have a divorce after all the properties are transfered under his or her name, then his or her Shanghainese spouse will be eligible to buy at least one house again since there is no property in the name of the local spouse. After the local spouse buys new property, they can then marry each other again. By repeating the process, this foreigner can buy as many as he or she wants. Of course, I have not taken into account the foreign exchange and mortgage loan issues.

What do you think? Don’t have a Shanghai wife? Go get one. It is easy.

Comments

  1. Lawrence says:

    The easier way would be to declare a passport lost, and get a new one.

    China documents checks are based on Passport number, so a different number means you’re a different citizen.

    This does mean that you need to keep hold of your old passports carefully, as you need to present the one in use at the time, when you do any property or even other government related documentation.

    1. Jason Tian says:

      Lawrence, that is another way of bypassing China real estate rules. I am aware of such practice ever since the restriction rules are introduced. There are even people trying to get a passport from an African country in order to purchase real estate in China. Funny enough.

  2. 1234 says:

    最后一句话可以看出部分外地人的心态真是有问题。

    1. Jason Tian says:

      It is not that I am biased towards Shanghai girls, but not many people will dispute that it is a fact that Shanghai girls are more willing to marry foreigners.

      well, maybe it is more appropriate to replace “It is easy” with “It may not be difficult”.

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