Before you sign a rental contract, check the title certificate and whether the home is mortgaged. Send every payment by transfer and note what it is for

Before you sign, have the landlord produce an identity card and the title certificate. Then take your identity card to the real-estate registration office and check whether the home is mortgaged or has been sealed. You can check before any contract is signed. A home that was already mortgaged or sealed before it was let, and is then auctioned and changes owner, cannot be one you demand to go on living in. Send the money by transfer and note what it is for, so you have a record.

Cost

No money. Take your identity card to the real-estate registration office once. A check takes half an hour. The hard part is having the landlord produce the title certificate in front of you.

Benefit

Before you sign, the landlord must show you identity papers and the real-estate title certificate. If there is no title certificate, the landlord must produce other material that shows a right to let the home. The landlord must also cooperate while you inquire into and check the information on this home. That is a duty the administrative regulations put on the lessor. Before any contract is signed, take your identity card to the real-estate registration office of the city or county where the home is, and you can check several things. What you can see is: the basic facts of the home, whether there are co-owners, whether a mortgage or a right of residence is registered, and whether the home has been sealed. After the contract is signed, the lease lets you check the registration result. This step matters because "a sale does not break a lease" has two exceptions. If the home was mortgaged to a bank before it was let, and is later auctioned to pay the debt, you cannot require the new owner to let you stay on under the old contract. The same is true if the home had already been sealed by a court before it was let. When the court auctions, if the lease gets in the way of a mortgage that came first, the court removes the lease and then auctions. The other way around, if the home was let to you first and you had already moved in, and the landlord mortgaged it only later, the mortgage does not affect your lease. If the home is sealed, or the title is in dispute, so that you cannot live there, you can end the contract. If someone else asserts a right and you cannot stay, you can demand to pay less rent or none. Sending all the money by transfer, noted as "rent for such-and-such a home for such-and-such a month," is the author's experience: if there is a dispute, it can show that you paid, and what you paid for.

Notes

Among the things you can check before a contract is signed, who the owner is is not included. So the name on the title certificate has to be matched, in person, to the landlord's identity card. Have the landlord attend the signing in person. If the landlord cannot come, you need a power of attorney. If a sub-landlord is subletting to you, you need the original landlord's written consent. If the landlord will not accept the right to end the contract or to pay less rent, you have to sue. Ordinary first-instance procedure starts at 6 months. Lawyer fees are generally yours. Noting the purpose on a transfer is not laid down directly in any regulation. It is the author's experience. You can check the same way before signing to buy a second-hand home, and after signing you still file an advance-notice registration. See item 14 (advance-notice registration).

Sources · 8

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