An argument on whether housing contracts apply to real estate speculators who don't declare their intentions upon purchasing has attracted widespread attention.
According to a Tianjin-based news service, a Mr You and Mr Wu, whose full names weren't given in the report, signed a housing contract in March last year. Wu later agreed when You transferred the property rights to a third buyer, thinking it was a private transaction. Later, Wu demanded the contract be dissolved, since he discovered You was a real estate speculator and was out to make money from flipping the property. The case was brought to trial in Tianjin, where the judge declared in favor of Wu, saying that You and his partners had not declared their 'real intentions' when signing the deal.
But this argument was legally incorrect, as commented Long Weiqiu, dean of Law School at Beihang University, stressing that vague ideas of intention have no place in contract law. Long recommended, however, that this might violate the professional ethics of real estate agents, and therefore be a case for applying the principle of 'public policy and good customs' that is part of China's Civil Law.
Wang Shengquan, a Beijing lawyer, supported this notion, saying that the speculation was just a 'remote cause' of signing the contract, not a core part of it, and that the judge's reasoning would be better if he had ruled in line with the principle of 'public policy and good customs.'
But Shi Jiayou, a law professor at Renmin University, countered at present there isn’t a law to ban real estate agents from personally buying houses. Shi argued that the “real intention” of the contract was that both parties complete the housing transaction under the conditions of voluntary and equal consultation, and any other identity they had, even as a real estate agent, shouldn't affect its validity.
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