Who Touched the Land Expropriation Compensation? How Farmers Can Defend Their Rights
In the process of urbanization, infrastructure construction, shantytown redevelopment, and commercial development projects all involve the expropriation and compensation of land and housing, which has also given rise to many disputes. Recently, the Hongshan District People's Court of Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, heard a case involving a dispute over compensation for the expropriation of contracted land. In the end, the court ruled against the village committee that had arbitrarily distributed the villagers' land expropriation compensation, ordering it to pay the plaintiff more than 280,000 yuan in compensation for the expropriation of contracted land. [Case Facts]
Li was a villager of Village A in Hongmiaozi Town, Hongshan District. On January 1, 1996, Li signed a land contract with Village A. The contracted household had a population of 6 people, the contracted land area was 10.5 mu, and the term of use extended to 2025. The 6 members of the contracted household were Li, Li's wife, two children, and Li's parents. Around 2007, Li's parents died one after the other. In 2012, the land under the land contract was expropriated by the government, with the Village A committee serving as the expropriation agent. The total land expropriation compensation was about 850,000 yuan. On January 10, 2013, Li received 565,000 yuan in compensation, and the remaining about 285,000 yuan was withheld by the Village A committee. The village committee claimed that the remaining funds were compensation for the land shares of Li's parents during their lifetime, should be handled by reference to inheritance, and had been divided equally according to the opinions of Li's parents' other children, about 40,000 yuan each. At that time, the funds had already been paid to 5 of them, and the remaining 2 unclaimed shares were temporarily held by the village committee. After Li's demands were unsuccessful, he sued the court on the grounds that the Village A committee had withheld the above compensation, requesting an order that the Village A committee return 285,000 yuan in land compensation.
After trial, the Hongshan District Court held that, according to Article 15 of the Rural Land Contracting Law, rural land contracting is based on the farmer household within the collective economic organization as the unit, and this right belongs to the farmer household and not to a particular family member. If one family member dies during the contract period, the issue of inheritance of the land contractual management right does not arise, and the contracted land continues to be contracted and operated by the other family members. In this case, although members of the household contract represented by Li (Li's parents) died, the amount of contracted land remained unchanged, the contractual management right still belonged to the household, and the compensation also did not pass by inheritance but belonged to the household. Li was the signatory of the land contract for the land contractual household, and bringing the lawsuit with him as representative conformed to legal provisions, so the court ruled that the defendant Village A committee pay the plaintiff Li about 285,000 yuan in land expropriation compensation.
[Legal Explanation]
China's Rural Land Contracting Law divides rural land into cultivated land, grassland, and other land lawfully used for agriculture, and divides rural land contracting into two categories: "household contracting" and "contracting by other means." The contractor under "household contracting" is the farmer household of the collective economic organization; "contracting by other means" refers to rural land such as barren hills, barren gullies, barren mounds, and barren beaches that are not suitable for household contracting, contracted through bidding, auction, open consultation, and other means, and the contractor may be a member of the collective economic organization or a unit or individual outside the collective economic organization. Regarding "contracting by other means," Article 50 of the law clearly provides that "where the land contractual management right is obtained through bidding, auction, open consultation, and other means, if the contractor dies, the contractual rights and interests due to him shall be inherited in accordance with the provisions of the Inheritance Law; during the contract period, his heirs may continue to contract." This provision is actually made for the above-mentioned "four barren" lands and does not include cultivated land.
After the Property Law came into effect, some people believed that the Property Law clearly defined land contractual management rights as usufructuary rights, and since they are property rights, they can be inherited. Therefore, land contractual management rights, whether under "household contracting" or "contracting by other means," can all be inherited. In fact, this usufructuary right of land contractual management is a kind of property right obtained by farmer households without compensation through contract based on their identity as members of the collective economic organization. Because collective land ownership belongs to the collective, under this restriction, it is made clear that land contractual management rights are strictly limited to being enjoyed by farmer households of the collective economic organization. This property right has a strict personal attribute, so it is not inheritable.
China's Land Contracting Law determines that contracted management of cultivated land is based on the "household" as the unit, and family members have a property co-ownership relationship with respect to land contracting rights in nature, that is, co-ownership of usufructuary rights. Therefore, if some members of the family die, as long as the "household" serving as the contractor still exists, the issue of inheritance does not arise, and the other members of the family continue to contract. This is what people often call "adding people does not add land, reducing people does not reduce land." In this case, although Li's parents in the "household" to which Li belonged died, there were still 4 family members in the "household," so the cultivated land originally contracted by the "household" should continue to be contracted by the remaining members, and the corresponding land expropriation compensation should also all belong to them and should not be distributed to others. Therefore, the court's support of Li's litigation request was correct.