“Interim Measures for the Consultation of Real Estate Registration Materials” has been implemented on 2 Mar. 2018

It is difficult to obtain the real estate registration materials in practice. In some cities, such materials could only be provided to public security organs, procuratorial organs or people’s courts; to the parties in a lawsuit; or to the lawyers who have been assigned by the parties in a lawsuit. Because of those differences, it might difficult for the creditor to get back the debt, especially for those lawsuits which involve different provinces. Recently, the Ministry of Land and Resources issued the” Interim Measures for the Consultation of Real Estate Registration Materials” (the “Measures”), which prescribed the practical rules for the consultation. Here are some practical highlights.
1. The consultation conditions
One may be an interested party for buying, selling, exchanging, gifting, renting, or mortgaging real estate or filing a lawsuit or applying for arbitration for a civil dispute over real estate or under other circumstances specified in laws and regulations, then such interested party could apply for the relevant materials.
The consultation conditions require the interests shall be related to the real estate, which means, if both parties in a lawsuit have other disputes, such as a product purchase contract dispute, where the debtor did not provide mortgage on a real estate, then the creditor could not apply the real estate materials for the use for a purchase contract dispute. In view of this, it is recommended to require the counterparty to provide mortgage on a real estate and conduct the relevant mortgage registration procedures, where the creditor has doubts on the ability of the debtor in any transactions.
2. The application materials
One may be an interested party for buying, selling, exchanging, gifting, renting, or mortgaging real estate shall provide the relevant contract; One may be an interested party for filing a lawsuit or applying for arbitration for a civil dispute over real estate shall provide the relevant notifications of a lawsuit or arbitration.
3. The Pre-consultation right
The Pre-consultation refers to a party could apply for some information of the aforesaid materials, and the party shall have the intention to buy, sell, rent or mortgage a real estate, or plan to bring a lawsuit or arbitration upon a real estate.
(1) A party could apply for the information, such as the nature status of the real estate, whether the real estate is co-owned, is registered for mortgage, is set an advance notice registration, or there is dissidence registration; whether the real estate has been sequestrated or restricted the real property in other ways.
(2) The lawyer entrusted by a party could further apply for the information, such as to confirm whether the name of the owner is correspondent with the name of the owner on the registration certificate; the co-ownership status; and the title of the party which requires to sequestrate or restrict the real property in other ways.