{"id":97,"date":"2017-08-04T13:41:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T05:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/2017\/08\/04\/china-estate-agent-marries-4-women-to-help-them-buy-apartmen\/"},"modified":"2017-08-04T13:41:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T05:41:01","slug":"china-estate-agent-marries-4-women-to-help-them-buy-apartmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/china-estate-agent-marries-4-women-to-help-them-buy-apartmen\/","title":{"rendered":"China Estate Agent Marries 4 Women To Help Them Buy Apartmen"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Estate agents have a reputation for being determined deal-makers, but one Chinese realtor took it a stage further by marrying four women \u2013 including a 70-year-old &#8211; to help them onto the local property ladder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr>\n<p>Estate agents have a reputation for being determined deal-makers, but one Chinese realtor took it a stage further by marrying four women \u2013 including a 70-year-old &#8211; to help them onto the local property ladder.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"34289eb17a45d244ec13ec3ee14db6ab-sz_362990.png@1l_640w.png\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FogulWAot07KYqwyjBV5qgG7JgcR?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" width=\"637\" height=\"397\" style=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Workers work at a construction site in front of Shanghai&#8217;s financial district of Pudong in Shanghai&nbsp;Photo:&nbsp;REUTERS<\/p>\n<p>The Shanghai agent married, and then quickly divorced the women to allow them to circumvent strict property laws which seek to cool prices in China\u2019s booming cities.<\/p>\n<p>The agent, who was named as Mr Wang and said to be aged about 30 in reports, pocketed more than \u00a38,000 from each transaction.<\/p>\n<p>Under Chinese regulations, purchasing property in the big coastal cities is often forbidden for people who live in the country\u2019s less prosperous areas.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"4b21d51cca6edddd4e6a333882c9549a-sz_43328.jpeg@1l_640w.jpeg\" style=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/Fk2R7LVu2djgf7Gunn_KpTBcBs24?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" width=\"640\" height=\"399\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Pedestrians walk along a street in downtown Beijing, China Photo:BLOOMBERG<\/p>\n<p>In Shanghai, investors must first pay city taxes for five years before they are allowed to buy property there &nbsp;\u2013 unless they marry someone who is officially a local resident.<\/p>\n<p>It was a niche market opportunity that seemed too good to resist for Mr Wang.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce the paperwork is put through, Wang applies for a divorce and puts himself on the market again,\u201d the state run Global Times said.<\/p>\n<p>But despite the \u201cprofitable workaround\u201d, there is a \u201cpotential risk&#8221; for buyers, the newspaper added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUntil the divorce is finalised, Wang is legally entitled to half the property&#8217;s value.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ab63f5a787ae5a07c08217915eb4ac45-sz_21020.jpeg@1l_640w.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FhSFCH49oGaj3Om3XeNU_5-TCdJz?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" width=\"367\" height=\"307\" style=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>Photo:Sina<\/p>\n<p>Fake marriage scams are not new in China, and officials in Beijing closed a loophole last year with new rules saying that the property has to be registered in the name of the spouse who has been a long term resident.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear whether those regulations were introduced to halt opportunist people from taking advantage of unsuspecting city residents, or whether people such as Mr Wang were the target.<\/p>\n<p>China has been seeking to cool a soaring property market with a range of measures, including rules on how many apartments couples can buy.<\/p>\n<p>The central bank last week ordered banks to crackdown on sham divorces \u2013 where people get divorced so they can pose as first-time buyers.<\/p>\n<p>Source:Telegraph<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"640-11.jpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.hiredchina.com\/FlXXlKXBxtykYAuKbjvAxKMwIbVH?imageView2\/0\/format\/webp\/q\/75\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" style=\"\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Estate agents have a reputation for being determined deal-makers, but one Chinese realtor took it a stage further by marrying four women \u2013 including a 70-year-old &#8211; to help them &#8230;","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiredchina.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}