TEN government agencies, including the city’s planning and land commission, the market watchdog and the housing authority, have launched a special action to rein in housing market irregularities, according to a work plan released Wednesday, sznews.com reported.

The special action, which focuses on stemming speculation, and cracking down on illegal practices of agencies and developers, and fake advertisements, aims to regulate transactions and improve the supervision mechanism in the real estate market.

The targeted irregularities include manipulating prices, deliberately withholding sales, illegally providing loans for down payments, illegally evading taxes on housing transactions, and publishing false price information to mislead buyers. Pocketing kickbacks in exchange for helping to purchase new apartments will also be targeted.

According to the work plan, the action will be divided into three phases. From July to December, at least one joint inspection should be carried out by each government entity to conduct a comprehensive inspection and governance of the real estate market.

The authorities, in light of circumstances, will adopt such measures as warnings, interviews and public notifications to rectify irregularities found during inspections.

In another development, Shenzhen’s planning and land commission Tuesday released further details on the new real estate curbs, expounding on the scope of the new regulations.

According to the notice released Tuesday, business apartments that were approved or reviewed by the commission or district governments before July 31 are not barred from resale.

Meanwhile, enterprises and institutions that purchased new or pre-owned commercial housing before the day are also able to continue their transactions. Homebuyers who purchased business apartments or commercial residential apartments before July 31 are also allowed to resell their properties.

According to the new rules, newly purchased business apartments, which are classified as business properties, are restricted from being resold within five years of the ownership certificates being issued, while commercial residential apartments are not allowed to be resold within three years.

The new regulations, which went into effect July 31, are aimed at curbing speculation in the real estate market.  

(Zhang Yu)