A Study On The Problem Of Housing Ownership In The Judicial Interpretation Of Marriage Law (3)

Data shows that all the courts throughout the country accepted marriage and family dispute cases in the first instance for a total of 1,286,437 in 2008,1,341,029 in 2009 and 1,374,136 in 2010, which had relatively concentrated reflection on the house-related disputes, such as houses bought by one-side parents after marriage or bought by one party by loan before marriage or the reformed houses bought by the couple but in the name of parents. Therefore, the Supreme People’s Court launched the draft of the judicial interpretation of the Marriage Law (3) and issued the final version in 2011 after full argument, in particular widely soliciting and seriously collecting public opinions and suggestions, in which there are many regulations on the issue of housing ownership between the wife and husband, providing the unified standard for the courts to handle these disputes. However, the house-related regulations arouse much controversy and a wide range of discussion. For example, according to the article 7, the house bought by both parents and registered under one child’s name will be owned by the couple in accordance with the shares of their parents’ capital contribution, which violates the basic principle of common ownership between the couples in the Marriage Law. Besides, there are still some related issues which are not prescribed in the judicial interpretation of the Marriage Law (3). For example, one mortgages the house before the marriage and then the couple both are responsible for payment after the marriage, in such case, how to calculate the value-added part of the house. Another case is how to divide the reformed house bought by the couple in the name of parents but registered under husband or wife or both. Therefore, this article will focus on the above three issues, namely houses bought by one-side parents after marriage or bought by one party by loan before marriage or the reformed houses bought by the couple but in the name of parents.The overall framework of this article can be divided into five parts:the first part mainly introduces our foundation of house property division system between the husband and wife, namely the current marital property system, including legal property system which includes joint property and personal property, and agreed property system between the husband and wife. The next three parts study the regulations related to the couple house ownership in the judicial interpretation of the Marriage Law (3), namely article7, article 10, article 12. The three articles respectively prescribe the houses bought by one-side parents after marriage or bought by one party by loan before marriage or the reformed houses bought by the couple but in the name of parents. For each situation, starting with the specific case, I will discuss the background and the specific meaning of each provision and make my comments on the merits and demerits. Finally, I am going to put forward my suggestions on these demerits. In the final part, I will present a conclusion on all my suggestions, hoping to cause a little reference value to the Marriage Law and the subsequent judicial interpretations.