When you buy an off-plan home, look at the pre-sale permit first. Earnest money, the down payment, and the loan go only into the pre-sale funds supervision account named in the contract

An off-plan home is a home put on sale before it is finished. Without a pre-sale permit, the developer cannot sell it and cannot take earnest money. The down payment and the loan you pay are, under the rules, to go in full into the supervision account; supervision is lifted only when the home can be handed over. Money sent to some other account is outside that protection.

Cost

No monetary cost. Look at the pre-sale permit before you sign, and check the account before you pay — a few minutes. The hard part is refusing when the salesperson tells you to transfer to some other account.

Benefit

An off-plan home is called a commercial-housing pre-sale in the regulations — the developer selling you a home that is still being built. In August (8) 2026 the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the National Financial Regulatory Administration issued a document: “The down payment, the personal housing loan, and other purchase funds paid by the buyer shall all be deposited into the funds supervision account.” Supervision is lifted only after the home has passed completion inspection and water, electricity, gas, and heat are ready for handover. The developer must write into the purchase contract the rights and duties of depositing the purchase funds into the supervision account. If the developer is in breach and cannot hand the home over on time, you may end the contract as the contract provides. The developer must return the money as the contract says and bear liability for the breach. The People’s Bank of China and the National Financial Regulatory Administration at the same time provided that a personal housing loan for a pre-sale home is paid by the bank directly into the project’s pre-sale funds supervision account. A 2022 document from three departments already stated that earnest money, the down payment, and the mortgage loan “shall all be deposited directly into the supervision account.” A project that has not received a pre-sale permit must not be pre-sold, and the developer must not take earnest money by subscription, reservation, queue numbers, or VIP cards. A pre-sale contract signed without a pre-sale permit is held invalid by the court. If the permit is obtained before the suit is filed, it may be held valid. Money paid somewhere other than the supervision account is outside this supervision. The same 2026 document also provides that for a project sold as a finished home, after the construction permit is obtained the developer may first take a “small amount of earnest money.” That earnest money is supervised by the housing-funds supervision body, held in an “earnest-money supervision account” opened at the project’s lead bank, and supervision is lifted only when the home is ready for handover.

Notes

For a project that had already received its construction-project planning permit before 28 August (8) 2026, the pre-sale conditions and the funds supervision follow each place’s old rules. That the down payment and the loan go into the supervision account was already required by the 2010 and 2022 documents. For a project sold as a finished home where the developer takes a small amount of earnest money while still building, the new rules require the earnest money to go into an earnest-money supervision account. The account name and number of the supervision account are whatever the purchase contract writes; check them once before you pay. If the contract is held invalid and the developer still does not return the money, you have to sue. Ordinary first-instance procedure starts at 6 months. Lawyer fees are generally yours. How the price of a second-hand home is paid is in item 7 (the dedicated transaction-funds deposit account).

Sources · 5

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