A 69-YEAR-OLD man took his son to court and requested that his son return 50 percent of an apartment’s ownership to him, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported Thursday.

    The man, surnamed Wang, said he had bought the apartment in Shekou in 2001. The apartment was registered under both his and his son’s names, and each of them held 50 percent of its property right. Later Wang divorced his ex-wife and married another woman in 2006, and their daughter was born the next year.

    Wang said that he had been 53 years old when he bought the Shekou apartment and he could only get a seven-year mortgage loan, which is why he let his son hold 50 percent of the property right on behalf of him.

    Wang said that he had bought another apartment in Bantian, Longgang District, for his son. “I trusted him because he is my son. So I didn’t sign any agreement with him,” Wang said.

    Wang repaid the entire mortgage loan to the bank in 2013 and obtained the property ownership certificate from the bank. In 2015, the price of his 70-square-meter Shekou apartment soared to over 5 million yuan, although it cost Wang only 360,000 yuan in 2001.

    According to Wang, his son wanted to take over the apartment as its value had multiplied and refused to transfer his 50 percent of the property right to Wang.

    Wang sued his son in October last year. After two rounds of hearings, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court upheld the previous ruling, which ruled in favor of Wang’s son, and rejected Wang’s appeal. The court said that Wang had failed to provide any written agreement to show that his son held 50 percent of the apartment’s property right on behalf of him.

    Wang provided bank records that showed the apartment’s deposit was paid by his bank card and the down payment was paid by a check issued by a company where he worked as a legal representative. However, Wang’s son said that he was the person who paid for the apartment’s down payment and the monthly mortgage payments by giving cash to his father.

    During the hearing, Wang’s son also accused Wang of being a libertine who had sexually assaulted his wife, which led to divorce.

    It made Wang feel more frustrated that his ex-wife, surnamed Qi, sued him because she believed Wang’s 50 percent of the apartment’s property right should belong to both of them as they hadn’t divorced when Wang bought the apartment.

    A Shenzhen-based lawyer, Zhou Zhenfeng, said homebuyers should sign written agreements when they ask someone else to hold their apartments’ property right on their behalf as a way to protect their legal rights.

    (Zhang Yang)