Study on the Legal Issues of Cooperative Housing Construction

Abstract

Multi-actor cooperative use of rural residential land to build housing has become a key modality in the latest round of residential land reform. It is an important avenue for comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, guaranteeing that every farm household “has a place to live,” and fostering integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas. Yet, in recent judicial practice, disputes arising from cooperative housing construction have steadily increased, and intermediate people’s courts across regions have rendered inconsistent rulings on the validity of such agreements—identical cases have been decided differently. The core reason is the restrictive rules on the transfer of residential land. In addition, some agreements are deemed invalid because their contents harm State or collective interests. For these agreements to be recognized as valid, judicial adjudication standards must first be refined so that court rulings accord with national policy; next, the rights of both parties—especially the land rights that investors or non-members of the rural collective may enjoy—must be clarified; and finally, supervision over cooperative construction must be strengthened to prevent collusion aimed at illicitly maximizing private gains at the expense of the State or the collective.