Rules for realty registration

On Monday, the State Council, China's cabinet, finally published the Provisional Regulations on Real Estate Registration, which will come into effect on March 1 next year. The rules involve the registration of land, waters, forestry and real estate, and many cherish the hope that it will help lay bare how many houses officials have hidden under their own names and the names of their relatives, or even ghost names.

In the past six years since a registration system was first mentioned, many have talked about the possibility of it becoming an effective tool to uncover the wealth that corrupt officials hide in the form of property.

Yet a look at the detailed articles of the published regulation suggests such an expectation may be too optimistic and it might have been too narrow an interpretation of what the rules intend to achieve.

None of the articles explicitly states that it is a compulsory obligation for all citizens to have their properties registered. And it goes without saying that those who have real estate certificates for the houses they have bought should have their detailed information already registered with the management departments of various governments.

And as far as the houses paid for with illegal gains are concerned, it should not be difficult for investigators to trace the properties back to a corrupt element no matter whose name is on the ownership certificate.

However, it is too naive to believe that the new real estate registration system will have an immediate effect in lending a helping hand to the anti-graft fight by laying bare the properties of corrupt elements.

The registration system protects the information applicants register about their properties. It is not a system whereby anyone can look up how many houses a particular person has under his or her name.

The integration of information on immovable properties, housing in particular, held by different government departments, should make it possible for the registration system in the future to squeeze the space for corrupt officials to hide the properties they have illegally got.

But what the registration system intends to achieve, as the rules show, is in essence the integration of the information about housing and other immovable properties in a single register so that the unified management of such information can be realized. It may possibly pave the road for the levying of a property tax, which will hopefully help regulate the housing market by levying incremental taxes on second, third or more homes a person owns. Meanwhile, for how the system will work, we have to wait for the details as to its implementation.