Can the migrant population be managed by landlords?

Staff reporter Guo Yonggang
Oct. 16, 2006

A new government regulation says "Landlords are responsible for identifying whether tenants are good people or not, and if he/she discovers problems with the tenant, the landlord is responsible for informing the government." Ms. Gu of Beijing Xicheng district's Miliangku community tells reporters this new regulation is a problem for her. How can she know whether or not her tenant is a good person?
"When workers migrate to Beijing, they need to rent a place to live. If we can manage their landlords, we can manage them," Tang Songjie, director of the residents committee for Miliangku tells reporters. Since 2003, all migrants renting houses in their community must first register at the housing rental administration and sign contracts with landlords concerning safety, fire-prevention, and family planning. Then they must have the director of family planning check their marriage and birth certificates. Only after all this can they move in. Through this system of management for housing rentals, the community has controlled migrant information about marriage and births, and has set up files.
According to a definition by Cai Hui, deputy director of Beijing Xicheng district's population and family planning committee, migrant workers are people from outside Beijing that do not have Beijing residence.
According to one source, this regulation by the Miliangku will be promoted throughout the entire Xichang district.
One expert says: don't push public responsibilities onto society.
This regulation in Xicheng district is similar to a regulation that just came out in Fujian province, and both have led to wide debate. The Fujian regulation, cracking down on pyramid sales, says landlords are responsible for investigating whether tenants are involved in pyramid sales schemes or not, otherwise they will be heavily fined.
Those supporting this type of regulation believe these rules enforce a sense of responsibility on the part of landlords and are positive for ensuring housing safety.
Mr. Xu of Beijing says, "Are landlords agents of the government? Does the government pay them?" Landlords merely rent their houses to those who are willing to pay rent. The relationship between them is purely economic. The landlord's responsibility is merely to pay taxes. What the tenant does with the rented house has nothing to do with the landlord.
Some comments say the new regulations assigns too much responsibility to landlords. They are ordinary citizens who use their spare rooms to make extra money. How much energy and what resources do they have to identify and monitor what tenants do in the house?
"When consumers go and buy things from a shop, is the shop responsible for investigating whether their money is legally earned? If the shop sells kitchen cleavers, and the cleaver was used to kill someone, should the shop be held responsible? Using the same logic, demanding a landlord to monitor tenants and prevent tenants from violating the law is totally ludicrous," says Prof. Zhang Shuyi of China Politics and Law University, an expert in administrative law. He believes this type of regulation is a typical case of pushing public responsibility onto society.
He says, if both parties find the level of rent acceptable, the landlord can rent his rooms out. Putting such monitoring and management responsibilities onto landlords, and holding the landlord responsible for irrelevant events like pyramid sales, family planning, and social order, is going outside the law, and is not supported by the rights enjoyed by citizens.
"The government is not transferring its own responsibility onto landlords. Those people who are critical of this new policy don't know the actual situation," says Cai Hui. She says, family planning is a basic national policy and every citizen has the responsibility to help carry it out. Also, managing tenants and providing services are mainly the work of family planning authorities and landlords are only asked to assist.
According to Cai Hui, by signing a contract, landlords can entrust the community to rent their houses out and monitor and manage their tenants. If the tenant is found to be pregnant, the landlord should assist in investigating whether the tenant is having too many children. If she is, then she can either accept family planning measures or her rental contract will be annulled.
She says, for migrants who have already had too many children, landlords are not asked to investigate that. But if it is found that the tenant has two children, the Street Committee will ask the tenant to produce a family planning certificate. And if the tenant cannot produce this, the landlord will not be allowed to rent the space to the tenant.
"Currently there is no good way to manage the migrant population, so we can only manage them through the landlords for the time being," says Cai Hui.
How much responsibilities do landlords have?
Ms. Gu of Xicheng district is currently in a tight spot. She is worried that in case something happens to her tenants, she may be held responsible.
A report at end of last year says a tenant renting a house somewhere died from carbon monoxide poisoning, and the court ruled that the landlord must pay compensation. "My house only brings me six or seven thousand yuan in rent a year, if a person dies I will have to pay several tens of thousands. Last winter I was on edge all the time, worried that something might happen to my tenant." says Ms. Gu.
To guarantee their safety, Ms. Gu wrote a list of safety measures for her two tenants. She also helped her tenants install stoves and clean them.
In reality, pressures on landlords do not stop at this. In Liaoning Anshan, a tenant committed armed robbery and the landlord was detained "by association." Last year, an elderly couple in Heilongjiang were fined because their tenant committed suicide by jumping from the building.
The "Beijing Housing Rental Management Regulations (draft)" published recently stipulates that landlords are not allowed to rent houses to people without legal personal identification. If the tenant is not from Beijing, the landlord should tell him/her to go to, or take him/her to, the police to register for temporary residence. If the landlord discovers suspicious illegal activities within his house, he/she should report them to the police immediately. If the landlord is found to be violating this regulation, he/she will be ordered to make reparations, and fined between RMB1,000 and 30,000. The landlord may even be held criminally responsible.
According to sources, in 2004, Beijing came out with a "Beijing Housing Rental Management Regulations (draft)," but when soliciting criticism, the majority of 246 citizens attending the hearing opposed it, and the regulation was thereby postponed.
The "Beijing Housing Rental Management Regulations (draft)" also stipulates that if the landlord does not clarify fire-prevention and social order responsibilities with his tenants or does not carry out his/her responsibilities, he/she will be fined up to 5-times the monthly rent. If the landlord discovers or suspects that the tenant is using his house to conduct criminal activities and does not stop him or report this to authorities, he will ordered to stop renting the house and he may be fined up to 10-times the monthly rent.
"It is OK to ask tenants to show his/her personal ID, other conditions should be put upon the landlord." says Zhang Shuyi. All legal regulations should be in keeping with legal principles. It not, this is a bad law and should be abolished. Even if the "Beijing Housing Rental Management Regulations (draft)" is implemented, it should still be amended if it is irrational.
Zhang Shuyi says, if landlords are penalized because of the illegal activities of his tenants, he can go to court and ask the relevant authorities to investigate the grounds of the penalty. If the grounds of penalty run counter to the laws of the nation, the penalty should be lifted. "Most important, we should prevent bad laws from being issued in the first place."

by reporter Guo Yonggang