Got scammed buying a house in Shenzhen and the transfer is stuck? For double-selling and small property rights disputes, a lawyer breaks down 3 paths to defend your rights.

Last Friday afternoon, a couple working in Nanshan Science and Technology Park rushed into my office with a purchase contract, their hands trembling. Last year, they had set their sights on an 89-square-meter second-hand apartment in Minzhi, Longhua, with a total price of 6.2 million yuan. They paid a deposit of 800,000 yuan, but on the day of the transfer, the owner said, "Let's wait a little longer," and that wait turned into four months. Later, they went to the real estate registration center themselves to check and found that the property had been mortgaged to a microfinance company two weeks before the contract was signed, with a mortgage amount of 3.5 million yuan.

This is not an isolated case. Real estate dispute cases in Shenzhen have been running at a high level for years. Among the cases handled by our law firm, Zhiming, disputes involving second-hand home sales, confirmation of rights for small property rights housing, and selling one property to multiple buyers account for more than 40 percent. One figure is worth noting: the average amount in dispute in Shenzhen real estate cases exceeds 20 million yuan, which means that behind any given case may lie the life savings of two generations of an ordinary family. Shenzhen's particularity also lies in the fact that, in addition to ordinary commercial housing disputes, there are a large number of complex property rights issues left over from history, such as small property rights housing, green certificate housing, and military-owned housing, especially concentrated in areas such as Futian, Longhua, and Bao'an.

Many people's first reaction when they encounter a real estate dispute is "I'll sue them in court," but the actual process is far from that simple. The key depends on what evidence you have, what state the other party is in, and whose name the property is currently under. I often say one thing to my clients:Real estate disputes come down to timing and the chain of evidence, not who can shout the loudest.

Let's start with the legal basis. Article 209 of the Civil Code clearly provides that the creation, change, transfer, and extinguishment of real property rights take effect only upon lawful registration. Simply put, whoever the property is registered under is legally the owner. Even if you have signed a contract and paid the money, as long as the transfer of ownership has not been processed, the property is not yet yours from the perspective of real rights. But this does not mean you have no recourse—Article 577 of the Civil Code also provides for liability for breach of contract. If the seller fails to cooperate with the transfer of ownership or sells the same property to multiple buyers, you may demand continued performance of the contract, compensation for losses, or rescission of the contract and the return of double the deposit.

In practice, we generally advise the client to proceed in three steps. First, immediately go to the real estate registration center to file an objection registration or a pre-notice registration, to "lock down" the property first and prevent the seller from disposing of it again. Second, sort through all payment receipts, chat records, and the broker's intermediary contract to form a complete chain of evidence. Third, based on the seller's ability to perform and the current status of the property, decide whether to sue to confirm title or to claim damages. If the property is still under the seller's name and there are no other rights holders, the success rate of suing for continued performance is relatively high; if the property has already been transferred to a third party, then it depends on whether the third party constitutes a "good-faith purchaser," and the legal contest involved here is very complex.

A typical example is a group case involving small property rights housing in Longhua that we handled last year. Around 2018, 32 homeowners each bought small property rights apartments in Dalang, Longhua, from the same developer, with each unit priced between 1.2 million and 1.8 million yuan. They signed "Cooperative Housing Construction Agreements" and lived there for five or six years without ever obtaining confirmation of their property rights. Later, the developer's capital chain broke, and the entire building was mortgaged to a bank, which moved to auction it. The 32 homeowners panicked at once, and some even mentally prepared themselves for "losing both their money and their homes."

After our team got involved, we didn't rush to file a lawsuit. Instead, we did three things first: first, we checked the payment records, receipts, and original agreements from that time household by household; second, we retrieved the historical construction application materials and the developer's qualification documents for that plot; third, we sent letters to the subdistrict office and the planning and natural resources bureau to confirm the current status of the houses. It took us a year and a half, and in the end we helped 32 homeowners obtain confirmation-of-rights judgments and keep their homes. The key to winning this case was complete evidence preservation and the right litigation strategy. If even three to five households had incomplete evidence at the time, the entire trajectory of the case might have been different.

At this point, some might ask: aren't small property rights houses not protected by law? Actually, this statement is inaccurate. The validity of sales contracts for small property rights houses is disputed in judicial practice, but if they are illegal buildings left over from history, under certain conditions, the court can confirm the right of use. The Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court has specific adjudication guidelines for such cases, with the key factors being the construction time, the nature of the land, and whether they have gone through historical legacy declaration, among other elements.

Q: I paid a deposit to buy a second-hand home in Shenzhen, but the owner suddenly said they won't sell. Can I demand that the transfer of ownership proceed?
Answer: You can demand continued performance, but only on the condition that the property has not been transferred to a bona fide third party and no mortgage or other encumbrance has been created. If the house has already been sold to someone else and the transfer has been registered in their name, you can only claim liquidated damages and compensation for losses. It is advisable to file an objection registration immediately and then bring a lawsuit as soon as possible.

If you are currently involved in a real estate dispute—whether you were scammed when buying a property, your transfer of ownership is stuck, you've encountered a case where one property was sold to two buyers, or you're dealing with confirmation of rights for a small property rights home—it's advisable to have a professional lawyer assess your situation as early as possible. The courts in Futian, Nanshan, and Longhua districts of Shenzhen also differ in their adjudication standards for such cases, so acting one step earlier may give you more room to take the initiative. Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm has been rooted in Shenzhen for 26 years and has handled over 10,000 cases in total. Director Lawyer Shen Jinlong has 26 years of practice experience and a master's degree from Fudan University. The team is very familiar with Shenzhen's local real estate policies and the courts' reasoning in adjudication. The address is Room 1802, Tower A, Xintian Century Business Center, Shixia North 2nd Street, Futian District, Shenzhen, and the phone number is 0755-25986969. You can contact them directly if needed.