Workers renovate an old residential building in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, on April 1, 2020. (Photo/Xinhua)
The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recently announced that it was studying the feasibility of a housing maintenance system that would include physical assessment of properties, a “housing pension” and housing insurance.
Shanghai and 22 other cities have already started piloting similar projects. Local governments are setting up a public fund as a housing pension in addition to the existing private accounts of property owners.
The personal account is based on the special housing maintenance fund system that has existed for 20 years, and people do not have to make separate maintenance payments outside the current system.
The most important measure of the reform of the housing pension system is the establishment of a public budget account. And the main purpose of this public budget account is to provide funds for the physical inspection of public housing.
To better ensure the safety of the population, the pilot cities used the funds collected by the government for public purposes.
As mentioned above, in addition to the public account, there is also a personal account for the “housing pension”. The housing pension system established this time will mainly use funds raised by the government to establish the public account for the “housing pension”.
According to the principle of “no increase in personal burdens and no restriction of personal rights and interests”, local governments will explore fund-raising channels to set up the accounts in their respective jurisdictions. Therefore, the “housing pension” public account set up this time will not increase the burden on property owners.
However, because the safety management of residential buildings is not yet perfect and there are many hidden dangers in the houses, the gaps in residential safety management need to be urgently filled. Therefore, the government needs to take more responsibility for the safety of existing houses, and it is urgent to carry out a reform of the residential pension system.
It is particularly noteworthy that most of the pilot cities belong to the first and second categories and have better financial conditions. However, with the economy facing enormous downward pressure and many other local governments facing financial difficulties, it remains to be seen how they will raise new funds to repair public finances as part of the reform.
