On Contract Dispute Case Of Mr Ma Vs. Miss Li About House Purchase In Agricultural Land

Housing problem is related directly to each individual's vital interests. Due to the increasing price of houses in the city, more and more urban residents buy house in rural area, and rural collective economic organizations also want to profit from the land. This leads to a growing prosperity of construction and trade of house in agricultural land. There have always been disputes in theory and in practice, on the validity of sales contract for urban residents to purchase houses in agricultural land,which are built legally on the homesteads.Taking the first sales contract dispute of the house in agricultural land in Beijing as an example, the court believes purchasing houses also includes the homesteads, but the homesteads could only be obtained by members of the village collective economic organization. Thus, as the buyer Miss. Li is an urban resident, this contract which violates compulsory regulations is invalid. However, through analysis and interpretation of normative documents at that time and nowadays, it is found that the house in this case is the legal property which belongs to the seller(Mr. Ma) ' s father and Mr. Ma could inherit this house legally. According to “ the House and Land integrative Principle ” and other relative regulations, Mr. Ma could inherit the homesteads and have the homesteads use right. Meanwhile, the Constitution, the Land Management Law, The General Principles of the Civil Law, the Property Law and other relative laws do not forbid the urban resident Miss. Li to buy Mr. Ma's house and obtain the homesteads use right. Especially the Land Management Law which causes many disputes, it actually allows the sales of village houses and does not set any limitation for the buyer 's identity. Although relative government policies set prohibitive regulations, their legal rank in the system are too low. According to the judicial Interpretation of the Contract Law, those regulations could not cause the contract void. For the record of transaction behavior of both parities on the“ Construction Land Use Permit of Collective Land” by the village committee, it could only prove that the village committee allows this purchase as the management organization of this land. This record does not represent the transference record of property rights, because the recording authority must be the government departments at county level or above. As stated in the normative documents, urban residents buying village houses could not be recorded on the land use permit. However,according to the Contract Law and other normative documents, recording on the land use permit is not a key element for an valid contract. No records on the land use permit will not affect the contract's validity, so the sales contract for Mr. Ma and Miss.Li is still valid. Also, considering this contract valid will encourage people to follow the principles of honesty and credibility, maintain stability of existing order, and reflect the equal protection for both rural and urban residents.The issue of housing sale in agricultural land also represents, at the early stage of new China, the existence of dual land systems and dual resident systems is necessary and has its positive effect. However, with the development of society and economics,its disadvantage is gradually revealed and the revolution is imperative. Prohibition and housing sale in agricultural land will not address this problem, the legality of houses in agricultural land will become one important project in this revolution.According to the spirit of recent land revolution files by the Party Central Committee,the future of housing sale in agricultural land will be increasingly bright.