How do you solve the problem of “sleeping” in a house
Chinese voice online, official account no. 2025. 08. 1008:22
21:38
On 1 august, in hunan changsha, a 21-year-old girl died, unfortunately, after being struck by objects that fell suddenly at high altitude. As a result of the crash, the police made a preliminary finding that it had fallen from the outer wall of a high-rise house. Although the final conclusions of the incident are still being argued by the police, we have found that the property in the sub-district, which last year discovered risks such as water seepage in the building in which the incident occurred, has already declared funds for specialized maintenance, but that a whole year has passed and substantial maintenance has been delayed for various reasons。
What kind of money is that? Do you have your own neighborhood? Why is its application so inefficient that it is the only reason for this tragedy
What are the common denominators behind the tragedy of china's urban houses, which are now entering “ageing” on a large scale? Home maintenance, where is it
"death to life" wall
The maintenance funds are at the clearance level
Almost a week after the incident, on friday, journalists arrived in the northern developing region of the north cay delta of chang shakhafu, where the crash took place, and the owners were still struggling。
Returning to 1 august a week ago, at about 1900 hours, a 21-year-old girl was shot dead by a falling object at high altitude while walking on the road adjacent to building 6. The following day, the relevant head of the public security substation of the chaifu district stated that the incident had been dismissed as a criminal case and that the preliminary finding was due to the fall of the outer wall of the building。
Tondehu: we can't determine whether this building fell off the street, or the one in the middle. The public security department has already taken samples, compared the concrete blocks scattered around the victim's site, and the building itself. Their final conclusions may require further justification。
In the e3 north citadel, where there were accidents, there were more than 3,200 households belonging to super-high-rise, high-density residential areas. Two units of the suspected 6 were constructed in february 2013, completed in september 2015 and commissioned in december 2015。
Although the building is only about 10 years old, under the relevant provisions, the quality assurance period for water protection work outside the building is five years and for the decorative façade is two years, and the building has already exceeded the quality assurance period. The incident, moreover, left the owners of building 6。
Indeed, it has long been suggested by the owners that some of the buildings have been detached。
According to the officials responsible for the property, the property is subject to quarterly inspections of the home and its facilities, as agreed in the service contract, and this year there have been two separate inspections of building 6. In april of last year, they received a response from their owners regarding the water infiltration of wall 6。
Ms. Fan, head of property of the e3 north cay delta, chang shakhafu region: since most customers report leaks in the house, the final leak is to be resolved, the maintenance fund should be activated. We quickly organized a coordination meeting of owners, which was organized last july。
In july last year, the relevant owners of property organizations met to coordinate discussions and voted for the adoption of a special maintenance fund for six housing walls, including building no. 6, covering more than 300 related owners who had reported problems. In the view of property managers, the problem of water infiltration is closely linked to the fall of the wall。
According to the schedule of building maintenance progress provided by the property industry, in november last year construction units were tendered for repairs to building no. 6, followed by off-site survey sites, public announcements, work on entrance sites, court breaks and the postponement of heavy rains. In the view of the property company, however, for the maintenance of building 6, the property is already undergoing emergency procedures, which would take longer if the normal process were followed。
Ms. Fan, head of property of the e3 north cay delta, chang shakhafu region: if the normal procedure is followed, two thirds of the clients of over 3,000 e3 households will be required, with one half of the owners ' consent. Because we started collecting more than 300 owners, we started emergency procedures. Our emergency response is simply to connect the client, or to sign by a leaking customer。
According to the implementing regulations for the use of special maintenance funds in the long-salt market, introduced in the pilot version last year, the use of special maintenance funds for property is divided into general use and emergency use, where emergency use is applied to emergency situations that endanger personal safety, the safety of the use of houses and public safety and require immediate partial maintenance of the property, such as in the case of “obvious identification” of elevators, fire systems and waterproof walls outside the house。
Zhang kobayashi, minister for the use of funds at the centre for the maintenance of property of changsha city: this emergency situation, like the external one, is an important one included in emergency maintenance, which, unlike the use of general maintenance funds, does not require voting procedures by owners. No vote is required, publicity is given and publicity is given afterwards. The proportion of emergency maintenance actually accounts for more than 60 per cent of the funds used for the maintenance of our property in changsha。
The owners told journalists that the sub-districts still lacked fully covered high-altitude surveillance cameras and that, as early as december 2021, the property industry had promised to include installation in its 2022 priority work plan, but it had not yet been installed。
The deputy director of the centre for insurance and economic development studies of the chinese academy of social sciences (sas) zhengjun jun: in the event of an annual elevator inspection and an apparent fall in the external wall, the property industry must take measures whenever there is a file. Because of the increasing number of these things, we also want the housing authorities to add some rules to the property。
The funds earmarked for residential maintenance are, by definition, those earmarked for the maintenance, upgrading and renovation of housing shares and facilities. Typically, the money was paid when residents purchased the house. However, it was not that easy for the inhabitants to use their own money。
In the cases covered by the media, from applications to the actual use of maintenance funds, several months, some for as long as three or four years, were lost. The approval of maintenance funds is subject to a multi-level review of the owner's committee, the property company, the street office, the housing authority, etc., as well as a vote by the owner's assembly, and any delay in any of these stages will leave the old house in a long wait。
But can we afford to wait in the face of security
Aging housing has accelerated
How's the maintenance problem broken
Behind the multiple wall falls are the reality of the gradual “ageing” of our urban homes。
In recent years, the ministry of housing, urban and rural construction has been actively conducting urban medical examinations, which have been carried out in more than 290 municipalities throughout the country. The results of the nearly half a million questionnaires collected last year in 47 sampled cities showed that there was a lack of information about the situation
Among the main problems faced by the construction of dwellings in the period 2000-2009, wall problems such as leaking water were most prominent
This problem became even more acute in the older housing units built before 2000。
Zhang wenzhong, a second-level researcher at the institute of geography sciences and resources of the chinese academy of sciences: like human beings, these buildings have entered an important life cycle, namely, the stage of transition to middle and old age. Under this phase, some of these buildings, infrastructure on the ground and underground networks are entering the critical development phase of renovation and reconstruction. When it comes to security-related issues, problems at stake, issues of major concern to the civilian population, it is necessary to act on them, that is to say that i find the problem immediately to be addressed。
The break-up of the outer wall, the permeability of the roof, the ageing of the elevator and the funding for the specialized maintenance of the dwellings are precisely the solution to the security problems of the shared part of the dwellings. But it's not easy to use it。
Under the civil code, the use of the funds is subject to the principles of “two-thirds” and “twice”: that is, the vote shall be taken by the owner, who owns the exclusive portion of the land and has more than two thirds of the land, with the consent of a majority of the owners。
In shandong, mr. Li, in order to apply for maintenance funds to address the problem of roof seepage, needed to consult with 136 owners of the five buildings throughout the subdistrict, and eventually only 26 families agreed, 70 opposed and 40 had no access at all。
The vice-president of the centre for insurance and economic development studies of the chinese academy of social sciences, zhengjun jun: the threshold is indeed very high, with hundreds of thousands of households in the largest district of beijing, and even 100,000 in some districts, gathering two thirds of the owners ' votes in physical terms。
After the owner has voted, the application for the funds is subject to coordination and confirmation between the property company and the construction unit, which is then approved by the street office, the housing authority, etc. During the rainy season last summer, roof flooding occurred in a group of households on the roof of a small district of nanjing when the property requested maintenance funds. Today, one year later, and again during the rainy season, the funds remain unapplied。
In the face of a long routine process, the " green road " , implemented in 2008, has opened up a situation that endangers housing security. If the emergency situation requires immediate repair and upgrading of the public part of the dwelling, the property or industrial commission may skip the vote of the owner and submit the application directly to the competent authority。
In the management of maintenance funds in many locations, such as hunan and shandong, it has been made clear that serious detours, severe water damage and elevator failure are all emergencies. However, in practice, there is a lack of clear criteria for determining whether there is sufficient “emergency”。
On the one hand, there are a large number of dwellings in urgent need of maintenance funds and on the other hand, a significant amount of maintenance funds that lie in the accounts. In beijing, for example, data from the beijing city housing finance centre show that by the end of june this year, the total amount of funds earmarked for housing maintenance in beijing had exceeded 100 billion yuan, leaving a balance of over 84 billion yuan。
How to break the high threshold for the use of funds and the cumbersome bottlenecks in the approval process and effectively activate this vast amount of sleeping resources has become an important issue that needs to be addressed everywhere。
According to the ministry of housing and construction, since last year more than 290 municipalities throughout the country have carried out comprehensive urban health checks, of which housing security is of course an important component. But when we're done, we find something. What's next? Thus, the question of how to activate housing maintenance funds and break down the long start-up cycle has become common to many places。
By contrast, there are places where action is being taken, for example, where cities pass local legislation, simplify the application process, lower the threshold for use and allow the money lying in the accounts to actually “live”. There are also sub-districts at the grass-roots level that, while temporarily unable to resolve their contradictions, have managed to take various emergency measures, the most important of which is the need to secure the bottom line of security。
Breaking the road
Emergency response and the exploration of institutional innovations
As soon as the storm rained, the tiles fell down and almost none of the 10 residential buildings were spared. Who's not afraid of falling dangerous tiles in this 27-storey high-rise residential block
Zhang jie: each building has a small drop of tiles, occasionally, and procedures are more cumbersome when using a residential maintenance fund。
This sector, which is far from old, began delivery in 2011 and was completed in 2013, but the outer surface of the wall has passed the quality assurance period, and if it is to be repaired, it will have to request funds for specialized residential maintenance. Aware that the process of applying for funding is cumbersome and lengthy, small-area properties have decided that instead of waiting, alternative solutions should be found。
From the door of the unit to the pedestrian walkway, as well as parking spaces and small squares, the property was placed under a protective net whenever the tiles were likely to fall. The area covers approximately 60,000 square metres and the area of the network is about 6,500 square metres. The total cost is approximately $200,000, which is entirely owned by the property and does not require contributions from owners. More importantly, it took less than six months to complete the project, which was an immediate relief。
Zhang jie: it's more expensive to fix it with a maintenance fund. We've spent about 200,000 dollars on this net, so it's more practical. It did work very well when it was done, because there were small pieces of china falling in every building, and the middle network did put a lot of china down and our staff cleaned it up in time。
The installation of a protective net bypassed the lengthy approval process for funds for specialized residential maintenance, which was clearly a desperate emergency。
In addition to such expediency, more in-depth exploration is also under way to reduce the periodicity of funding requests by simplifying processes。
Mr. Yang, resident of the 3rd district of the hokkai gardens in suzhou industrial park, jiangsu province: we have many buildings in our neighborhood that are naturally falling off, with water leaking in our walls, and because of a six-month warranty period, the developers are no longer responsible for repairing and are plaguing the normal lives of our inhabitants。
Also at risk of falling outside the walls, this small district of suzhou decided to use special maintenance funds for repairs in the district. However, they also face the same difficulties, with two thirds of the owners voting and half agreeing, which is clearly not easy for a large community with more than 2,300 households。
To address this dilemma, the small estates “two-pronged” approach: one is to develop a maintenance programme on a house-by-house basis and to vote for the household to complete one and to build one first; at the same time, using a local property management app to upload information on maintenance programmes, details of funds, etc., for online viewing and voting by the owners has significantly reduced resistance to the voting process。
At the national level, since 2023, the country has been piloting three systems: house check-ups, pensions and insurance. In the area of housing insurance, the pilot has been effective. In zhejiang ningbo, jiangsu zhang jia harbour and hebei fuzhou, insurance coverage for old houses is being piloted. Under this model, in the event of a failure of the facility, the insurance company will pay compensation, which will quickly resolve the issue of maintenance funds. Moreover, in local practice, owners can decide on insurance for a year or years only once。
The deputy director of the centre for insurance and economic development studies of the chinese academy of social sciences, zheng jun: a vote by the owner, some one-year insurance policy, resolved the problem of repairing the elevators for one year and the outside wall, one vote was sufficient. We are also aware that lift maintenance insurance can be purchased for three years on the basis of a single vote by owners. When the corresponding insurance coverage was purchased, the profits and benefits of the insurance company were highly correlated with the safety management of the house, and in the event of death or injury there would be substantial compensation, so he focused on a number of pre-emptive approaches. For example, outside walls are patrolled and some inspection and rehabilitation programmes are developed to try not to fall off the walls and not to cause death or injury. This is an experimental approach from the point of view of safe house management。
There is no doubt that we are rapidly entering the age of housing “ageing”。
The data show that, by the end of 2022, nearly 20 per cent of the urban housing stock was over 30 years old, equivalent to one of every five urban housing units entering the intermediate later stage of design life. By 2040, nearly 80 per cent of the country's districts are expected to be “old”. This means that in the near future there will be an explosive increase in the demand for house maintenance, and the question of whether the current institutional mechanism for housing maintenance financing will meet this demand is a problem that we must address。
Time is needed to resolve difficult problems, such as the tragedy of changsha, which can no longer happen。
