The Provisional Regulations on Real Estate Registration (the “Regulations”) were promulgated on December 22, 2014 and shall take effect on March 1, 2015.

According to Jennifer Jiang, Chief Attorney of Bilingual Lawyers, the focus of the Regulations is the integration of real estate information throughout the whole country. The Regulations require the Ministry of Land and Resources of the PRC to work with relevant authorities for the establishment of a unified information management platform on real estate registration information (the “Platform”).  The real estate registration information of the registration authorities of various levels shall be incorporated into the Platform. After the integration, whether a person can have access to information of multiple cities in one or any registration authority is not mentioned, but very likely.

The controversial “search by name”, however, is not mentioned at all through the Regulations.  That is, the current “search by address” is still the only way to have access to the real estate registration information. “Search by address” refers to that owners, concerned parties and relevant government authorities or their representatives need to go to the relevant registration authorities and apply for information by providing the exact addresses.   “Search by name”, however, is expected to be that the real estate information of all cities can be searched as long as the name of a person is provided. It is not uncommon that some house owners refuse to disclose information on their properties, which causes lots of difficulties for their debtors, spouses or other concerned parties to realize their rights.
 

Link to full text in Chinese