Recently, a notice on the promotion of the registration and pre-transfer system for state-owned land use rights was issued by Yichang Municipal Natural Resources and Planning Bureau for active reuse of idle and inefficient land and better circulation of land resources.

　　Land transfer is an effective way to revitalize land use. However, in order to prevent malicious hoarding and speculation, the law stipulates that land cannot be transferred if the relevant development investment has not reached 25%. For the sake of reinvigoration of the use of existing inefficient land and reduction of idle land, Yichang is introducing the “Pre-transfer System” for state-owned land use rights. According to the principle of “investment before transfer”, it is advocated that the land of total development investment less than 25% can be transferred with both parties handling a pre-announcement registration as stipulated after signing the contract on land use rights transfer and completing the real estate registration procedures when the development investment meets the requirements of transfer.

　　According to this notice, in the case that meets the requirements, the pre-transfer of land use rights can be achieved through five steps: pre-transfer contract filing and reviewing, commitments of pre-announcement registration, application for (or modification of) administrative license, development investment verification, and formal transfer registration. The municipal natural resources and planning department will reinforce both the review of transfer contract prices, contract performance integrity, etc., and the supervision on pre-transfer, and regulate the management of secondary land market, so as to effectively prevent risks. (Correspondents/Huang Yue’e & Liu Nian)