Research On The Functional Expansion And Improvement Of The Right Of Habitation System

The institution of right of habitation was born in the period of Roman Law.The right of habitation was established specifically to meet housing demand of the elderly and divorced women in the family at that time.So the nature of the right of habitation was strong personal servitude for that day.The right of habitation in the nature of personal servitude plays an important role in the field of marriage and family and social security.For example,it is conductive to the maintenance of the harmony and stability of marriage and family relations and social fairness and justice.This is also the traditional function of the institution of right of habitation.The function of the right of habitation in the nature of usufruct are much more powerful than the right of habitation in the nature of personal servitude.For instance,it promotes making the best use of everything and party autonomy to the greatest extent,and effectively increases the number of real estate investment and accelerates development and booming of the hotel industry and tourism.These are new functions derived from the institution of right of habitation in modern times.They are the modern functions of the institution of right of habitation.With the change of the economic foundation and social needs,the right of habitation in the nature of personal servitude is getting more and more difficult to satisfy the needs of social needs.The institution of right of habitation the must be transformed into usufruct.These provisions about the inhabitation right system have some serious limitations in Chinese Civil Code which is mainly reflected the characteristic of strong personal servitude.There are six provisions in the chapter of right of habitation,seven of which embody the characteristic of strong personal servitude.This alone is enough to prove that Chinese the institution of right of habitation still stay at personal servitude phase.The conversion of the institution of right of habitation to usufruct is far from complete.It’s against the development trend of the institution of right of habitation,so that the function of the right of residence system in the nature of usufruct can’t be played its full part and people’s needs are not satisfied.So it’s imperative for China to construct usufructuary the inhabitation right system.We must perfect the current institution of right of habitation from usufructuary point of view against removing the personal servitude of the current institution of right of habitation in China.