Circular of State Administration of Land on Printing and Distributing Several Provisions on Determination of Land Ownership and Land Use Right

Circular of State Administration of Land on Printing and Distributing Several Provisions on Determination of Land Ownership and Land Use Right

Guo Tu (Ji) Zi [1995] No. 26

March 11, 1995

(The above-mentioned Circular is omitted here)

Appendix: Several Provisions on Determination of Land Ownership and Land Use Right

Chapter I General Provisions

Article 1 In order to determine the land ownership and land use right and to have land registered legally, the Provisions is hereby enacted in accordance with relevant laws, regulations and policies.

Article 2 The land ownership and the land use right shall be defined by the people's government above the county level, and the particular affairs thereof shall be undertaken by the land administration department concerned. Where disputes over allocation of land ownership and land use right occur, the land administration department concerned shall put forward disposal opinions thereof and report the same to the people's government for disposal decisions thereof. Or the land administration department concerned shall, after reporting the said disposal opinions to the people's government for approval, issue the disposal decisions thereof by itself.

Chapter II State Land Ownership

Article 3 All the land within the city proper shall be owned by the state.

Article 4 In accordance with the Land Reform Law of the People's Republic of China and other relevant provisions stipulated in 1950, all the land whose ownership then was not allocated to the farmers shall be owned by the state; and the land which has not been incorporated into the land collectively owned by the farmers since the implementation of the Revised Draft of Regulations on Work of Rural People's Commune (hereinafter referred to as the Sixty Articles) in 1962 shall be owned by the state.

Article 5 The land compulsorily expropriated by the state for national construction shall be owned by the state.

Article 6 Any unit or person who exploits and utilizes any state land shall have the land use right thereof in accordance with the law, while the land ownership thereof shall still be owned by the state.

Article 7 All the land used for state-owned railway lines, stations and freight yards use and other land set aside for railways in accordance with the law shall be owned by the state. The original land used for railways which was allocated to the farmers at the time of land reform and the un-expropriated farmer-collectively-owned land along both sides of newly-built railways shall be collectively owned by the farmers.

Article 8 All the land used for highway lines above the county level (inclusive) shall be owned by the state. The farmer-collectively-owned land along both sides of highways that is used but not compulsorily expropriated for highway protection and other purposes related to the highway use shall still be collectively owned by the farmers.

Article 9 All the land used for state-owned power and communication facilities shall be owned by the state, yet, the land that is collectively owned by the farmers but used for the state-owned power or communication poles and towers without normal expropriation procedures shall still be collectively owned by the farmers, and the operation of power and communication may be defined into OTHER RIGHT for managerial units thereof.

Article 10 All the landed property of the enemy and puppet regime taken over by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the military land compulsorily expropriated or allocated upon approval by the people's government after liberation in 1949 shall be owned by the state.

Article 11 All the land inside the watercourse embankments, the dike-dam land outside the watercourse embankments, and the land below the historic maximum flood level of a watercourse without embankment or the design flood level of a watercourse shall, unless under the following circumstances, be owned by the state: the ownership of the said land has been allocated to the farmers since the land reform; the said land has not been compulsorily expropriated by the state; and the said land is still collectively used by the farmers.

Article 12 All the land for such hydraulic works as water reservoirs and canals under the direct administration of the water conservancy departments above the county level (inclusive) shall be owned by the state. All the farmer-collectively-owned land that is within the management and protection scope of the hydraulic works but not compulsorily expropriated shall still be collectively owned by the farmers.

Article 13 After all the people of the farmer collective concerned have been resettled and reallocated land due to the national construction, the original land collectively owned by the said farmers shall be turned into the ownership of the state. Yet, where the collectively-owned land is continuously used by the original farmers after their resettlement and is not yet compulsorily expropriated by the state, the ownership of the said land shall remain unchanged.

Article 14 Where the organizational system of farmer collective has been cancelled or all the population thereof has been transferred to non-agricultural population due to land expropriation for national construction, the land of the said farmer collective having not been compulsorily expropriated shall be owned by the state. The original farmer collective and its members who continue to use their original land shall enjoy the land use right over the said state land.

Article 15 Where any the-whole-people-owned unit or urban collectively-owned unit decides to merge any farmer-collectively-owned enterprise, the collectively-owned land originally used by the said merged enterprise shall, after the procedures thereof have been gone through by relevant unit, be owned by the state. And the land that is collectively owned by the farmers of one village (town) but is used by the town (township) enterprise of another one in accordance with the approval procedures and compensation standards of land expropriation for national construction shall be turned into the ownership of the state.

Article 16 Prior to the promulgation of the Sixty Articles in September, 1962, the original land of the farmer collective (including the land owned by individuals before the Collectivization Movement) which was then used by the-whole-people-owned units, urban collectively-owned units and / or overseas Chinese farms under collective ownership but has not been returned to the farmer collective by far shall be owned by the state.
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