Homeowner Associations in China: From Property Management Company’s Autocracy to Homeowners' Self-Governance

USC Sol Price School of Public Policy presents a talk with Guoqing Li, director of the Urban Policy and Urban Culture Research Center, the Institute of Urban & Environmental Studies, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on home ownership in China.

Since 1998, when China started implementing private housing reform, commercial condominium communities have been formed and become the main form of community in China. Along with this shift, homeowners associations become a new type of self-managed organization that represents a new interest group in Chinese urban society.

Historically, property management in China can be divided into two stages. During the first stage, the property management company had carried out autocratic management, resulting in many social conflicts. This model was first established in Shenzhen in 1981, so people call it “Shenzhen Model”. The second stage starts from 2011, homeowners associations in Beijing are generally establishing and implementing self-governance. It is called the “Beijing Model”.

The central problem for homeowners association development in contemporary China is how to establish a clear relationship between reasonable homeowners' internal structure and their utilization of an external management service system. Examining American and Canadian property management development experience, the fundamental thing we see is that property management should be defined in economic terms and must be clearly defined as separate from social management. First of all, we must differentiate individual homeowners’ status as property owner and the status of the entire condominium as a commercial entity. Secondly, we must clarify the role and develop professional ethics for the property manager as agent of the
Board of Directors. Thirdly, we must establish and improve external property management marketing service systems and realize the marketization of the property service system.

Speaker Bio: Guoqing Li is the director of the Urban Policy and Urban Culture Research Center, the Institute of Urban & Environmental Studies, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The center provides research and policy recommendations to central and local governments on issues related to urban social development and urban planning. Li received his Ph.D. from
Keio University in Japan. His current research interest is to understand how American homeowners establish the board of directors to implement effective management of the common property by using “Common Pool Resources” theory. He expects that the research can help Chinese homeowners to effectively protect their properties.

*RSVP  FOR THIS EVENT TO WEIJIE WANG at weijiewa@usc.edu.*
Food will be provided.