Why can't rural homestead land be bought and sold freely?
Advancing land system reform, including the reform of the homestead land system, affects every part and must be carried out actively yet prudently, in a standardized and orderly manner, and with caution.
City dwellers are busy trying to go to the countryside to buy homestead land, and this enthusiasm has never faded. Going to the countryside to buy homestead land is indeed an understandable idea. Because "seeing the mountains, seeing the water, and remembering the nostalgia of home" is a sentiment shared by both city dwellers and rural residents alike, and it has always been kept in their hearts. But whether rural homestead land can be bought and sold freely is also an extremely realistic question.
From the policy perspective, homestead land cannot be bought and sold freely.
Didn't the Notice on Further Accelerating the Work of Confirming, Registering, and Issuing Certificates for the Right to Use Homestead Land and Collective Construction Land, issued by five departments including the Ministry of Land and Resources, say that farmers' property rights and returns are to be safeguarded by determining the right to use rural homestead land? That is right. The Notice requires further acceleration of the confirmation, registration, and issuance of certificates for the right to use homestead land and collective construction land, with the aim of laying the property rights foundation for reform goals such as improving the rural homestead land system and establishing a unified urban-rural construction land market. But nowhere between the lines does the Notice say that homestead land can be bought and sold freely.
The core of the Notice is to ensure that the right to use homestead land and the right to use collective construction land enjoyed by farmers are confirmed and protected by law in accordance with the law. The Ministry of Land and Resources recently issued the Technical Plan for Rural Cadastral and Housing Surveys (Trial), whose main goal is to comprehensively investigate the basic situation of every parcel of land within rural areas, including homestead land and collective construction land, such as ownership, location, boundaries, area, use, and buildings and structures on the land, so as to provide basic materials for the confirmation, registration, and issuance of certificates for rural collective land and lay the foundation for implementing unified real estate registration.
From the reform perspective, homestead land also cannot be bought and sold freely.
It should be said that the fundamental purpose of reforming and improving the homestead land system is to safeguard the usufructuary right to homestead land, protect farmers' lawful rights and interests, protect farmers' property rights and interests, and lay an institutional foundation for improving rural reform.
The Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reform points out that it is necessary to safeguard farmers' usufructuary right to homestead land, reform and improve the rural homestead land system, select several pilot sites, prudently and steadily advance the mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights, and explore channels for farmers to increase property income. It is necessary to establish a rural property rights circulation and transaction market and promote the open, fair, and standardized operation of rural property rights circulation and transactions.
From the institutional perspective, homestead land likewise cannot be bought and sold freely.
China's rural land system is collective ownership. Fundamentally speaking, homestead land is rural collective land, and this institutionally stipulates that ownership of homestead land belongs to the rural collective, not to individual farmers. What farmers possess is the right to use homestead land. Therefore, homestead land can neither be bought and sold freely between urban and rural areas, nor bought and sold among villagers within the collective.
It must be seen that the starting point of homestead land system reform is to safeguard farmers' homestead land rights and interests and increase farmers' property income, not to solve the problem of construction land quotas in cities, not to let urban residents go to the countryside to buy homestead land and build houses, and even less to encourage industrial and commercial capital to go to the countryside to enclose land. From the policy, reform, and institutional perspectives, there is no room for freely buying and selling homestead land.
In short, the land system is the fundamental system of rural areas, land relations are the most basic production relations in rural areas, and land rights and interests are major rights and interests of farmers. Advancing land system reform, including the reform of the homestead land system, is of great importance and affects every part; it must be carried out both actively and prudently, and also in a standardized and orderly manner and with caution.