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Planting Houses in Shenzhen: A Real Estate Market without Legal Titles1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2014

Shitong Qiao
Shitong Qiao*
Affiliation:
Yale Law SchoolNew York University School of Law
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Abstract

Can a real estate market operate without legal titles? The answer has conventionally been no. But in Shenzhen, the iconic city of China’s market economy, an opposite phenomenon exists: half of the buildings within the city, which has 1,993 square kilometers of land and over 10 million people, have no legal titles and have been rented or sold to millions of people illegally. These illegal buildings are called small properties, because their property rights are “smaller” (weaker) than legal properties. Based on my one-year fieldwork, this paper is a first step toward explaining the small-property market. It reveals that legitimate organizations and professionals have developed a network to facilitate impersonal transactions of illegal small properties. Set against the backdrop and context of China’s transition, this paper presents a feasible plan for building a market economy in transitional countries, where property laws are often less than ideal.

Résumé

Est-ce qu’un marché immobilier peut fonctionner sans titres juridiques ? La réponse a traditionnellement été non. Mais à Shenzhen, la ville symbole de l’économie de marché de la Chine, le phénomène inverse existe : la moitié des édifices situés à l’intérieur des limites de la ville, qui s’étend sur 1 993 kilomètres carrés et compte plus de 10 millions d’habitants, ne possèdent aucun titre juridique et ont été loués ou vendus à des millions d’individus illégalement. Ces bâtiments illégaux sont dénommés « petites propriétés », puisque leurs droits de propriété sont « plus petits » (plus faibles) que ceux des propriétés légales. Fondé sur mon expérience d’un an sur le terrain, cet article cherche d’abord à expliquer le marché des petites propriétés. Ce texte précise comment des organismes et des professionnels légitimes ont développé des réseaux afin de faciliter les transactions impersonnelles de petites propriétés illégales. Avec pour toile de fond la transition de la Chine, cet article propose une option viable pour bâtir une économie de marché dans les pays en transition, là où une législation sur la propriété est souvent moins qu’idéale.

Keywords

property rightssmall propertymarket transitionChinalaw and developmentdroits de propriétépetites propriétéstransition à l’économie de marchéChinedroit et développement
Type
Other Articles / D’autres articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 29 , Issue 2: Law and Decolonization / Droit et décolonisation , August 2014 , pp. 253 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2013 

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References

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12 Shitong Qiao, “Small Property, Big Market: A Focal Point Explanation” (forthcoming, on file with the author).

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