Recently, the Ministry of Land and Resources ("MLR") and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-rural Development ("MOHURD") have distributed the Circular on Relevant Issues Concerning the Connection between the Real Property Transactions and the Real Property Registration (the "Circular").
The Circular provides for matters in four aspects, such as the handover and sharing of materials and the connection between transactions and the registration. The Circular states that complete copies of electronic data about real property registration should be handed over to the real property registries, and this work should be completed by the end of September this year. In addition, the Circular requires that a property transaction institution and a real property registry should have their respective functionaries stationed in the same service hall, establish one window to handle affairs together, and prepare a unified list of application materials comprising statutory materials needed for both the real property transaction and the real property registration. Where relevant affairs needed to be handled for a house transaction, formalities in this regard should be completed within three working days in general if such deal falls under the category of general transactions; otherwise, such time frame may be extended by two more working days. In case of any affairs concerning the property transaction and the real property registration that could be handled on line, relevant authorities should not request the parties concerned to go through formalities on the spot. Furthermore, the Circular clearly specifies that relevant authorities should be particularly careful to prevent "houses with limited property rights", those built on the rural collective land, from being legalized through the real property registration.