"70% of divorce proceedings in Shenzhen are over property, how do you divide the mortgage house after marriage and the premarital house? Zhi Ming's lawyer explained it with 3 real cases"

"At 3 p.m., at the entrance to the Futian District Government Service Center, Ms. Chen, 38, held a pile of bank water and asked me tremblingly: "Lawyer, this house is my wife's down payment, but after five months of marriage, my husband and I are returning it. Now he wants a divorce, saying that he wants to u2018returnu2018 the money I paid in with interest, and the house belongs to him - is it reasonable?""
"Ms. Chen's confusion is repeated almost every week in the consulting room of Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm. Seventy percent of divorce cases in Shenzhen can not get around the house; and the misunderstanding about "how to divide the house" is more shocking than the value of the property itself."

"According to data from the Family Trial Division of the Shenzhen District Courts, in the past three years, the proportion involving property division has stabilized between 68% and 73% in divorce proceedings. The average amount of the disputed subject matter of these property disputes ranges from 3 million to 8 million, involving individual cases of top school district houses in Nanshan District or mansions in Qianhai District, and the amount of the subject matter exceeds 20 million."
"Why is divorce in Shenzhen so complicated? The reason is that the city's unique "mixed property rights" form: parents contribute down payment, couples jointly repay the loan, one party buys a house before marriage, adds the name after marriage, demolishes the compensation house, owns the property on behalf of others... Behind each form, there are completely different treatment rules in the Civil Code's marriage and family edition."
"According to Article 1087 of the Civil Code, the joint property of the husband and wife at the time of divorce shall be handled by agreement between the two parties; if the agreement fails, the people's court shall judge according to the specific circumstances of the property and the principle of caring for the rights and interests of the children, the woman and the no-fault party. However, in practice, many parties only stare at the monthly payment of principal, ignoring the huge difference in the value-added part of the property."
"In a divorce case in Longhua District handled by Shen Jinlong's lawyer team last year, the woman transferred out a joint deposit of 1.86 million yuan in 28 cases within three months before the divorce proceedings were filed, in the name of "filial piety to parents". The court finally found that the act constituted a transfer of the husband and wife's common property, and according to article 1092 of the Civil Code, the woman was sentenced to a 12% shortfall in the share of the property - converted into cash, that is, the difference of nearly 400,000 yuan."
"The vast majority of couples walked into marriage with the mentality of "talking about money and hurt feelings". When the relationship broke down, they found that the choice question that had not been done at the time was now to answer it again at the cost of millions of dollars."
"Q: "How much can I get for my divorce in Shenzhen and repay the loan together after marriage?""
"A: The key is to distinguish between "personal property before marriage" and "common property of husband and wife". According to Article 1063 of the Civil Code, the down payment paid by one party before marriage and the corresponding value-added part of the property are personal property. However, the amount paid by joint loan repayment after marriage and the value-added part of the corresponding property shall be the common property of the husband and wife. In judicial practice, the calculation method is: the total amount of principal and interest of the common loan repayment u00f7 (the total cost of purchasing the house) u00d7 the current value of the property u00f7 2. For example, a set of Nanshan real estate purchased in 2016, with a total price of 5 million yuan, a down payment of 1.5 million yuan, a cumulative total of 1.2 million yuan of principal and interest on the loan repayment after marriage, and a current market value of 12 million yuan. The share you can claim is: 1.2 million u00f7 5 million u00d7 12 million u00f7 2 = 1.44 million - not simply u201creturn the loan to meu201d."
"Q: "The child has always been taken by the grandparents. Is custody necessarily awarded to the father in the event of divorce?""
"A: Not necessarily. Article 1084 of the Civil Code stipulates that after divorce, children under the age of two are raised directly by the mother. For children over two years of age, the court will decide according to the principle that is most beneficial to the minor child. The ruling scale of the courts in Shenzhen is relatively uniform: not only look at economic ability, but also look at the time input of raising history, education companionship, and residential stability. In one case, the Nanshan District Court awarded a child to a mother with a lower income who had been responsible for transporting the child to and from school, on the grounds that "maintaining the original living environment of the child is more important than simply comparing the income"."
"Step 1: Sort out the context of property rights. Pull out all the purchase contracts, payment vouchers, loan contracts, and repayment records, and mark the source of funds one by one. If it is a parental contribution, please be sure to add the remarks or debit notes of the bank transfer at that time. This step will help you determine whether the suite is 66.7% common property or only 30% divisible."
"Step 2: Lock in the status of your property. Apply for the court to retrieve the flow of all bank accounts in the other party's name in the past two years, focusing on the time point of large abnormal transfers, frequent cash withdrawals, and purchase of wealth management products. The experience of Shen Jinlong's lawyers team shows that if a party suddenly transfers assets three to six months before the prosecution, as long as the timing and the intention of divorce coincide, the court finds that the possibility of transfer is extremely high."
"Step 3: Negotiation first, litigation at the bottom. The average hearing period for divorce cases in Shenzhen is 90 days, which may be extended to more than 180 days if property appraisal and paternity appraisal are involved. In Futian District, a $6 million property costs about $25,000 for every month of delay. If the disagreement between the parties is less than 15%, mediation closure is often more cost-effective than judgment."
"In 2023, Chief Lawyer Shen Jinlong represented a high-net-worth divorce case in Yantian District. Mr. Wang, the party concerned, purchased a set of properties worth 7.8 million yuan in full before marriage. After marriage, he used the mortgage loan of 5 million yuan as working capital for his wife's business needs, and signed the names of both husband and wife on the mortgage contract. At the time of divorce, the woman claimed that the property had been converted into the common property of the couple due to the "post-marital mortgage and joint debts"."
"Director Shen's team did three things: first, retrieve the bank's original mortgage file to prove that all the loan funds flowed into the woman's company account; second, sort out the records of Mr. Wang's personal account for the continuous repayment of the loan, accumulating principal and interest of 2.873 million yuan; third, according to Articles 1062 and 1063 of the Civil Code, it is argued that the mortgage belongs to the "disposal of personal property" and does not change the ownership of real rights. The final court ruling: The property is owned by Mr. Wang personally, and only the value-added part of the joint loan after marriage is compensated to the woman by 840,000 yuan u2014 compared with the "half" originally advocated by the woman, the property rights and interests of about 7.16 million yuan were successfully preserved for the customer."
"The cruellest thing about marriage and family matters is that the people who used to be the closest to each other have to use the coldest rules to split up the common life. But the rule itself is neutral, and the key is to see who masters it. If you're experiencing a similar problem, you don't have to face it alone. Guangdong Zhiming Law Firm has been working in Shenzhen for 26 years and has handled more than 1,000 marital and family cases. Shen Jinlong's chief lawyer team can help you strive for maximum rights and interests within the legal framework."
Room 1802, Building A, Xintian Century Business Center, North 2nd Street, Shixia, Futian District, Shenzhen. Tel: 0755-25986969.