How can the reform of farmers' housing property rights be advanced steadily? Chen Wensheng and others offer suggestions
Since the reform and opening up, rural China has undergone earth-shaking changes, but the urban-rural dual structure has not been fundamentally changed, and the trend of the widening gap between urban and rural development, especially the income gap, has not been fundamentally reversed. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee proposed giving farmers more property rights, safeguarding farmers' usufructuary rights over their homestead land, reforming and improving the rural homestead system, prudently and steadily advancing the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights, and exploring channels for farmers to increase property income. This has far-reaching strategic significance for accelerating the process of rural reform, promoting the circulation of rural property rights, revitalizing the asset elements of farmers, forming a long-term mechanism for increasing farmers' income, and thereby improving the institutional mechanisms for integrated urban-rural development.
Reform of farmers' housing property rights is an objective requirement for giving play to the decisive role of the market in allocating resources
Giving play to the decisive role of the market mechanism in resource allocation is an explicit requirement of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, and more than thirty years of rural market-oriented reform have also objectively required that farmers' housing property enter the market for circulation and optimal allocation. Apart from engaging in agricultural production and operation and going out to work to increase income, Chinese farmers have almost no channels for property income. Farmers' housing property is the most important family property of farmers and the most market-valuable resource in rural areas. Promoting its market circulation for value preservation and appreciation can not only open up new channels for farmers to increase income, but also open up new paths for farmers to expand production, increase investment, and provide credit assets. At the same time, the task of transforming traditional Chinese agriculture is arduous. Only by accelerating the release of the dormant property rights energy in rural areas and promoting the optimal allocation of rural resources can a property rights system adapted to modern agricultural development be established and the opportunities of a new round of starting out be seized.
Five major practical difficulties facing reform
Laws and policies are unclear. Current laws and policies do not clearly stipulate transactions involving farmers' housing property rights, and farmers' housing cannot be freely circulated like commercial housing. In particular, current laws such as the Property Law and the Guarantee Law stipulate that homestead land cannot enter the market, which restricts the circulation of farmers' housing property rights. Although some places have carried out exploratory reforms of rural housing mortgages, to date there are still no clear laws, regulations, or policies that explicitly stipulate the circulation of farmers' housing property rights.
Ownership is unclear. Farmers' housing has only a collective land use certificate and no property ownership certificate, and to this day remains a sediment without clear property boundaries. So-called farmers' housing property is merely an attachment on collectively owned land. Vague ownership provides opportunities for the alienation of property rights, and this is the fundamental reason why farmers' land rights and interests are repeatedly violated. At the same time, the usufructuary right over homestead land attached to farmers' housing property rights can only circulate within the village collective. Farmers' housing property rights have no foundation, which hinders the normal circulation and equal exchange of rural resource elements.
The property rights market is immature. The property rights market is an important condition for the circulation and exchange of property rights. The market for farmers' housing property rights lags behind the needs of rural economic development, and a standardized rural housing property rights market has not yet taken shape. The immaturity of the property rights market has resulted in the lack of a platform for the circulation of farmers' housing property rights, making it difficult to realize returns on farmers' property rights, and has become a major bottleneck constraining reform of farmers' housing property rights.
The evaluation system is unsound. China has a vast territory and complex geography, resulting in large differences in the geographical location, natural conditions, and cultural environment of rural housing. Determining their value is intricate and complex, and professional evaluation is needed before they can enter the market. At present, many places have almost no rural housing evaluation institutions, and the relevant operating mechanisms and service systems are imperfect, making evaluation of farmers' housing property rights difficult and costly, which affects the circulation of farmers' housing property rights.
Risk protection is imperfect. Our country is a major agricultural country, and housing is the main property of farmers. In a situation where the rural social security system is still unsound, if a sound risk protection mechanism for transactions involving farmers' housing property is not established as soon as possible, once transaction risks occur they will seriously affect farmers' survival security.
Main countermeasures for steadily advancing reform of farmers' housing property rights
Accelerate local legislation to provide a legal basis for the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights. Based on the Property Law, accelerate the confirmation and certification of farmers' housing property to provide property rights protection for farmers' housing property rights; in light of local realities, intensify the process of abolishing, revising, and enacting local regulations and rules, accelerate the introduction of local regulations and rules related to the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property, and resolve the disconnect among reality, policy, and law regarding farmers' housing property rights.
Give play to fiscal guidance to innovate financial services for the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights. Through government fiscal policy guidance, encourage financial institutions to innovate financial products, design financial products suited to farmers' needs for the mortgage and guarantee of farmers' housing property rights, and improve service quality; explore the establishment of credit enhancement funds financed by municipal and county governments, with cooperating banks carrying out rural housing mortgage loan business on a scale of no less than a certain multiple of the balance of the credit enhancement funds, so that farming households can obtain financing by mortgaging homestead land and housing.
Establish an evaluation system to reduce transaction costs for the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights. Accelerate the building of evaluation institutions and encourage urban evaluation institutions to engage in rural housing evaluation business in rural areas; the government shall provide public evaluation services by purchasing services, guide evaluation institutions to reduce evaluation fees and improve service quality; intensify education and training of rural housing evaluation talent and build a highly competent evaluation team. At the same time, simplify evaluation procedures and reduce the cost of transactions involving farmers' housing property rights.
Improve safeguard mechanisms to prevent unexpected risks in the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights. Improve the social security system, establish and perfect systems such as rural old-age insurance, medical insurance, minimum living guarantee, and social relief, and promote the establishment of a multi-level urban-rural social security system; intensify the construction of urban and rural public rental housing and low-rent housing to enhance farmers' ability to cope with the risks of circulating housing property rights. Establish housing property rights reform risk compensation funds at the government level above the county level, and provide certain risk compensation to financial institutions when farmers' housing mortgage or guaranteed loans are overdue. Establish specialized insurance institutions, encourage farmers to take out insurance when mortgaging, guaranteeing, or transferring housing, and provide certain compensation in the event of an accident to reduce the risks of housing property rights circulation. Encourage commercial insurance institutions to innovate insurance products and offer insurance business for farmers' housing property rights.
Advance pilot demonstrations to explore reform experience for the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights. Starting from pilot demonstrations, prudently and steadily advance the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights, and explore compensation to farmers who voluntarily withdraw from idle housing and homestead land by the government or collective economic organizations with reference to land expropriation compensation standards and compensation standards for expropriation of housing on state-owned land, or according to market evaluation prices. Adhere to institutional red lines such as the rural housing system and the homestead system, and prevent opportunistic behavior in individual places under the name of reform. At the same time, establish a reform risk evaluation mechanism. For reforms that go beyond current institutions and laws, conduct scientific risk evaluation to prevent the institutional and social risks brought about thereby.