A Study On The Owners’ Independent Management Of Residential Special Maintenance Funds

Being used for the repairing, renewing and transforming of residential buildings’common parts and sharing facilities, residential special maintenance funds is called pension ofproperty. In order to provide residential special maintenance funds’s security and protect theowner’s profits, our country takes a management model that includes governmentdepartments and the owners. In the stage of no owners’ committee, government departmentsshould help the owners mange the funds, but the owners should set up owners’ committee tomanage the funds, as quickly as they can. In order to achieve the purpose of strengthening theowners’ management of the funds, the author of this essay analysis the factors that hinder theprocess of self-management, introduce some extraterritorial advanced experiences.There are four parts of this essay, except for the introduction and conclusion, about23thousand words.Part I, the brief introduction of residential special maintenance funds.The residentialspecial maintenance funds was used to be called as “the cost of repair”,“residential specialmaintenance fund” by the laws and regulations of Chinese. A correct understanding of theresidential special maintenance funds’s definition and nature can helps us to build a perfectmanagement system to strengthen the independent management of the funds. In China,government departments and the owners’ committee are the regulatory managers of the funds,but the management by government departments just is a transition, only the owners’committee has the final authorities to manage the funds. And there are some scholars whoproposal to build housing trust management model of the special maintenance funds.Part II, the factors that hinder the process of the owners’ self-management. In themanagement pactice, the goverrment department is reluctant to hand the management rights tothe owners’ committee, because the owners do not aware of the importance of the funds, theowners’ committee is hard to set up, the ambiguous legal status of the owners’ committee.This impedes the process of the owners’ sef-management. However the management bygoverment departments makes the funds facing the risk of depreciation, because the lack ofsupervision mechanism and enthusiasm.Part III, introduction of the extraterritorial residential special maintenance funds systemin contrast. In America, the condominium homeowners’ association usually authorize propertyservice corporation to manage the funds.The property service corporations can authorize trust company to run the funds.In America the condominium homeowners’ association has thequalifications of a legal person, a internal supervision mechanism, and the condominiumhomeowners’ association should buy insurance for the management committee members.InCanada, apartment building is registered as a company, the owners’committee is the board ofdirectors, the members of the board of directors are volunteers eletected among the ownerswhich should meet strict qualifications,the company should purchase liability insurance forthe members of the board of directors.In Singapore,the municipal council is the manager ofthe residential special maintenance funds, and the municipal council can employ projectdirector to monitoring the use of the funds. In Hong Kong, the funds was divided intocommon funds and expendable funds, and the incorporated owners are the manager of thefunds.Taiwan formulate strict and effective measures to punish the owner who refuse to payfor the funds.Part IV, strategies to perfect the owners’ self-management of residential specialmaintenance funds. In this part, suggestions on the owners’s self-management are offered,including increasing residential special maintenance funds propaganda, strengthen theconstruction of independent management mechanism, establishment of scientific querysystem, grope for increment methods, the establishment of interim committee.