Here is a news clip from China Daily reporting on the "new law" in Nanning and the selling of homes/buildings that have not yet been completed. Too bad we did not have the same law here in Canada as many lost or had their deposit held back for a while as condo projects were cancelled and put back due to the down turn in the economy.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-01/24/content_9368268.htm

NANNING: South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region plans to pilot banning the sale of uncompleted commercial residential buildings in the capital city Nanning this year to "regulate the order of real estate market", local officials said Sunday.

The existing presale system allows developers to sell residential houses prior to the completion of construction.

The reform would make Nanning China's first city to ban the presale of commercial residential houses.

Song Jidong, a senior official of the regional housing and urban-rural development department, said specific policies are still being formulated.

Three years ago, after I married a local woman that I had dated for about 5 years, I decided to buy a home that did not stand up yet. Not even the foundation was laid to it yet, but we saw the blue print of the fine high rise next to a walmart supermarket somewhere in a small town (worried to name it now). Better than that, my wife assured me the developer was well known in the area and her mother and sister had bought their home from the same company too.

Now, never mind the fact that the central government of this country has banned such sales of homes recently, and never mind the fact that most Chinese homes are of a really low quality and so greatly overpriced, the issues are THE DISHONEST CHINESE DEVELOPERS AND THEIR CORRUPT AS WELL AS INCOMPETENT LOCAL AUTHORITIES. These kinda peoples people will cheat their own people no matter what and'll put them into situations where the customer has to follow, buy, agree etc to whatever they do/say.

In my case, after I had put a down payment on a home that was just on the blueprint, a year later I was told to add another 6,000 Yuan because the company decided to build some waterproof walls rather than what they had in plan previously. Little choice that I had, according to my wife, I went and paid these beeps. I did so as my wife's brother in law that's in real estate as well, said it was common for develpers to build poor walls that aren't usually waterproof. Moreover, he said I should be happy. Ok!

The promise that the developer's profect would stand by April 2009 has not been followed up to, and so we are still waiting to move in. Well, the last floor was just build and I do not believe we'll be able to move in any soon.

Worst of all, last month we were told that we'd have to pay another 13,000 Yuan as the blueprint was incorrect. Asking the developer to further explain that, I've been told that the local authorities caught some mistakes which were especially in the original blueprint's "noneusable square meters".

Today,and after having spoken to our bank that has sent us bakc to the developer for approval on that extra 13,000 hickup, I saw the developer again. When I expressed my dissatisfaction and asked to put that extra money towards my wife's mortgage in the bank, my wife and i were just told that we could not do that and that we'd have to pay the 13,000 Yuan before we got the bank loan. The make my adrenaline flow faster, the developer said that we'd have to pay as we could loose the home.

My wife is most of the time none confrontational and she just wants a home as we've got a little one and half years old son, but I just want to move out of this country ASAP. Well, after we sell this sucker. Although, I thought I'd want to stay for another couple years to have my son learn the language and a bit of the culture too. Hard to imagine that peoples people go with such a farce flow of their country's farce system.

So, I suggest you foreign folks do no put your money on either, an overpriced low quality home standing or a nonestanding cheaper home that could get you more disrespect and troubles further on.

Cheers and beers to taking any cash we earn on mainland across the seas and as far from the 5,000 years old fart as we can as any local authorities will always abuse us all