Beijing And Shenzhen Issue New Regulations On Rent Supervision: Restricting Enterprises' "Capital Pool" And "Rent Loan" Only To Tenants

The explosion of long-term rental apartments has seriously affected the rental market. Beijing and Shenzhen have issued rent regulations almost at the same time.

On February 1-2, Beijing and Shenzhen issued a notice on supervision of housing rental funds. Five departments in Beijing require that banks and small loans should not allocate "rent loan" funds to housing rental enterprises. Shenzhen requires the rent to be included in the special regulatory account, and the "rent loan" is directly allocated to the tenants.

According to the Beijing housing and Urban Rural Development Commission, restricting the "capital pool" of enterprises is the core content of the new rules. In principle, the amount of rent collected in advance from the lessee by the housing leasing enterprise shall not exceed three months' rent, and the cycle of collecting and paying rent shall be matched. "Long term collection and short payment" business model is explicitly prohibited.

Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of housing and urban rural development said that superimposed on the impact of the epidemic, the domestic long-term rental apartment fund chain rupture, "explosion" incidents occurred frequently. As the long-term rental apartment industry "thunder" of strong conductivity, our city is also widely affected. In this regard, the provincial and municipal leaders have issued instructions, requiring the study of housing rental industry capital supervision measures to standardize the development of the housing rental market.

Shenzhen: rent loan is directly allocated to tenants

On the evening of February 1, Shenzhen housing and Construction Bureau publicly solicited opinions from the notice on carrying out supervision of housing rental funds (Draft for comments), and made regulations from four aspects: opening a unique special account for rental funds, implementing supervision of rental funds, standardizing housing rental consumption loans, and strengthening supervision and management.

In terms of the special account for rental funds, the housing leasing enterprises must establish the only special account for housing rental funds in the city, which is used to collect the deposit and rent of all lessees under its operation. No matter how many bank accounts a housing leasing enterprise opens, it should use the only special account to collect deposit and rent from each tenant during the operation period.

In terms of the supervision of rental funds, if a housing leasing enterprise engaging in Housing leasing business through entrusted operation and sublease collects the lessee's deposit and the rent for a period of more than four months, the regulatory bank shall supervise the excess funds, or the housing leasing enterprise shall provide bank guarantee of corresponding value.

In terms of standardizing housing rent consumption loans, it is clear that financial institutions should sign a loan agreement with the lessee separately, and the loan term shall not exceed the term of the lease contract, and the loan shall be fully appropriated to the lessee's personal account. It is forbidden for housing rental enterprises to require tenants to use housing rental loans through concealment, deception, coercion and rent preference, and it is prohibited to include the relevant contents of rental loans in the lease contract.

The draft pointed out that the establishment of a multi sectoral joint regulatory mechanism, housing and construction departments mainly supervise enterprises with high-risk business model and their special accounts, political and legal departments mainly organize grid personnel to investigate high-risk enterprises and give risk tips to lessees, while banking supervision and financial supervision departments mainly focus on banking financial institutions and micro loans with illegal behaviors The company will be investigated and dealt with according to law, the network and information department will mainly supervise and investigate the illegal release of housing rental information, and the public security department will mainly crack down on the illegal and criminal acts in the housing rental activities.

The Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of housing and urban rural development said in the drafting note that recently, there are many cases of high-risk business models such as "high in and low out", "long-term receipt and short payment" and "lease loan" adopted by the housing rental enterprises that carry out business by means of entrusted operation and sublease, which has brought extremely strong wind risk to the market. In order to standardize the operation of housing rental enterprises and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties involved in Housing leasing, in accordance with the instructions and instructions of provincial and municipal leaders on regulating the operation of housing rental enterprises, the bureau took the lead in drafting the notice on the supervision of housing rental funds.

Since the beginning of this year, the impact of the epidemic has been superimposed, and the fund chain of long-term rental apartments in China has been broken, and "Thunderstorm" incidents have occurred frequently. As the long-term rental apartment industry "thunder" of strong conductivity, our city is also widely affected. In this regard, the provincial and municipal leaders have issued instructions, requiring the study of housing rental industry capital supervision measures to standardize the development of the housing rental market.

On the same day, Shenzhen also issued the draft of "several measures to further promote the stable and healthy development of the housing rental market in our city". It is proposed to increase the supply of rental housing through multiple channels, arrange a certain proportion of rental housing land in the new construction land, and list the rental housing land supply plan separately in the annual construction land supply.

Beijing: banks and small loans are not allowed to allocate "rent loan" funds to housing rental enterprises

On February 2, Beijing Municipal Commission of housing and urban rural development, Beijing Municipal Bureau of market supervision, Beijing cyberspace office, Beijing Municipal Bureau of local finance, and Beijing Banking and Insurance Regulatory Bureau issued the notice on standardizing the business activities of housing rental enterprises in this city, which is applicable to the activities of Housing leasing enterprises to rent others' houses in a decentralized manner, and then lease them to lessees and collect rents from them. The contract shall come into force on March 1, 2021, and the previously signed contracts shall continue to be performed.

According to the Beijing housing and Urban Rural Development Commission, restricting the "capital pool" of enterprises is the core content of the new rules. In principle, the amount of rent collected in advance from the lessee by the housing leasing enterprise shall not exceed three months' rent, and the cycle of collecting and paying rent shall be matched. "Long term collection and short payment" business model is explicitly prohibited.

The notice requires that banking financial institutions, small loan companies and other institutions shall not allocate the "rental loan" funds applied by the lessee to the housing rental enterprises.

As for the rent, Beijing requires that the amount of rent collected in advance from the lessee by the housing leasing enterprise shall not exceed three months' rent in principle, and the cycle of collecting and paying rent shall be matched. The deposit collected by the housing leasing enterprise from the lessee shall be entrusted through the special account established by Beijing real estate intermediary industry association, and the amount of deposit collected shall not exceed one month's rent. The housing leasing enterprise shall notify the Beijing real estate intermediary industry association to return the deposit within 2 working days after the termination of the contract, and the Beijing real estate intermediary industry association shall return the principal of the deposit and the interest of the deposit in the same period to the lessee within one working day.

Before carrying out business in this city, the housing leasing enterprise shall submit the opening information and the list of employees to the housing and Urban Rural Construction Department of the registered district. Enterprises that have not submitted the opening information shall not release the housing information through the Internet.

According to media reports, the relevant person in charge of Beijing Municipal Commission of housing and urban rural development said that in recent years, the frequent occurrence of thunderstorms in long-term rental apartments all over the country is mainly due to seizing the market, expanding the scale, taking illegal behaviors such as high in and low out, long-term collection and short-term payment, rent loan, etc., and blind expansion, which makes it difficult for them to continue their business.

It said that the common problems are: first, Internet thinking is the dominant way of operation, and arbitrage is realized through burning money, impulse and packaging listing, and the business model is high risk. Second, long-term dependence on equity financing, relying on shareholders' blood transfusion to maintain operation. Capital in the rental market and other areas of people's livelihood, at the same time, try to avoid social responsibility. Third, through the bank rent installment loan financing in disguised form, it directly forms the fund pool, embarks on the road of high leverage crazy expansion, and transfers the risk, which makes the society pay the bill passively and the government is forced to accept the bid.

The person in charge pointed out that Beijing will take various measures to implement the national strategy of "developing both rent and purchase", vigorously cultivate and develop the housing rental market, support and encourage long-term rental enterprises to operate in a standardized and steady manner. Beijing will resolutely stop and take the initiative to detonate the evil trick of "seizing leeks" from the people by means of financialization and capitalization for the purpose of encircling money.