Study On The Legal Control On Housing Rental

For the accelerating pace of urbanization, the transferring of surplus labor force fromrural areas to cities and the rapidly concentrating of population in cities, the housing shortagehas occurred in major cities in China. Due to the high price of houses and the governmentbeing not able to provide sufficient affordable housing, rental has become a solution tohousing problem for most of people with low incomes. A free market environment can createa prosperous housing rental business, but this always sacrifices the interests of the tenants. Inorder to guarantee citizens’ housing right, many developed countries or regions choose tocontrol the rental market by means of law under the condition of market economy, rather thanadopting a laissez-faire attitude. If the construction of legal system is not in line with thedevelopment of rental market, not only would the speed and stability of social developmentbe hindered, but also irreparable damage may be incurred. Therefore, the research on the legalcontrol over housing rental will be of positive significance for the protection of tenants’legitimate rights and interests, the maintenance of order in the rental market, and theimprovement of legal system of macroeconomic regulation.Based on the residents’ housing situation in China, as well as the present situation ofrental market regulation, this thesis focuses on the following aspects: Is it legitimate andreasonable to grant the tenants of tilt protection through the intervention of law? Over whichpart or parts of housing rental should we carry out legal control? How to control? How toimprove China’s system of legal control over housing rental, in order to enable a coordinateoperation? This thesis is divided into four parts:Part Ⅰ: General theory of legal control on housing rental. This part starts with thedefinition of legal control on housing rental, then move on to a detailed reasoning on thelegality, reasonableness, necessity and feasibility of legal control over housing rentaltransaction and rental markets, through a theoretical analysis of citizens’ housing right, theidea of society-orientation in Economic Law, transaction costs in housing rental, theory oflimited freedom and moderate control on real estate property rights, and the theory ofbalanced division of government’s economic authority and responsibility, as well as acomparative analysis between legal control over the housing rental and public rental housing system. Finally, the author demonstrates the principles and directions of the legal systemconstruction in theory.Part Ⅱ: The investigation of the housing rental regulation system in China. To take therental market in Beijing as an example, the author reveals the absence of regulation in therental market in China and the results of such absence, including failure of rental housing tomeet the habitable standard, lack of a reasonable basis in rent standards, arbitrarily end therental contract by the landlord, housing supply insecurity and so on, by means of empiricalresearch.Part Ⅲ: Foreign countries’ experience of legal control over the housing rental and theirinspirations. Models of United Kingdom, United States, Germany and Japan are taken asexamples in the part. The author first introduces the implied obligations of landlord and thesystems of fair rent, repossession control as well as guaranteed rental in UK’s Landlord andTenant law, then analyze the implied habitability guarantee, the systems of rent regulation andexclusion prevention in USA, as well as the rent and terminate limitations in Germany and thesystem of legitimate subject matter in Japan. Finally, through the study on the experience offoreign countries, the author summarizes some inspirations for improving the legal controlsystem on housing rental in China.Part Ⅳ: The thinking of improving China’s legal control system on housing rental. Onthe basis of the theoretical analysis, investigation of housing rental situation and inspirationsfrom foreign experience mentioned above, the author made recommendations concerning thelegal control of housing rental as follows: Guarantee the quality of tenants’ living byestablishing rental housing market access standards and setting up minimum standards forhabitable housing. To relieve the burden on tenants through the establishment of a registrationsystem on rental prices, the setting of government-guided rental price, and the control overrent increase. To protect the realization of tenants’ housing right by establishing the systemsof renewable lease, and legitimate termination, and introducing the judicial principle oflegitimate subject matter. To secure adequate rental housing supply through classifiedproperty tax and to improve the supervision system of housing rental market to guarantee thehealthy operation of legal control system.