Charles Liu, Chinese people, renowned for finding ways around official rules, are increasingly throwing away their marriages for a chance at a second home.
In a practice that stretches back to at least 2013, Chinese couples have been divorcing each other as a way to circumvent official regulations or restrictions on home buying. The issue has helped drive Guangzhou’s divorce rate, where the issue seems to be most acute, much higher.
Known in China as a “false divorce” or “technical divorce”, couples temporarily divorce in order to qualify for certain conditions as single adult, and then re-marry after they completed their objectives. According to Guangzhou’s bureau of civil affairs, 11,584 couples divorced in the first half of the year, with 30 percent of them later remarrying.
In most cases, Chinese couples get a technical divorce in order to exploit a loophole that allows them to own more property, or to make school enrolment easier for their children. In Guangzhou, a single family is restricted to owning one house. When a married couple temporarily divorces, one person is free to purchase a new property while the other retains ownership of the house. With two houses owned, the couple can now remarry with more assets.
The unnamed official wouldn’t disclose the specific number of Guangzhou couples that have “technically” divorced over the past few years, but said the number was rising.
“The number of divorce cases exceeded the number of marriages in some months in 2013 when the central government issued strict policies and regulations to limit the purchase of properties by residents,” said the official.
The rate of divorce in Guangzhou is the fourth-highest in China right after Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
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