Unable to join the homeowners' committee for missing property fee payments? CapitaLand Hancheng homeowners seek solutions to escape their predicament.

If you don’t pay the property management fees on time and in full, can you still run as a candidate for the residents’ committee member?

This clause, which was long ago repealed by law, has now become a stumbling block generated by the residents’ committee of the Kaide Hancheng community in the Foshan Chanchen Shiwang Town subdistrict on the Foshan Chanchen Shiwang Town streets.

Kaide Hancheng is positioned as a “prestigious riverside community.” Nanfang+ reporter Xiān Jūn, Jū Jun拍摄

Property services face heavy scrutiny

Several neighborhood owners told reporters that the Kaide Hancheng community was developed by Singapore’s Keppel Land and is positioned as a “prestigious riverside community.” It consists of 11-story low-rise apartment buildings plus townhouses. The property management fee standard is 2.5–3.5 yuan per square meter. Because many residents are dissatisfied with the quality of property management services, in 2021 all owners voted in accordance with law to establish the first residents’ committee. During the first committee’s term of duty, the property management company repeatedly shirked responsibilities, refused to rectify issues, and the living environment and management order in the community continued to deteriorate, triggering strong objections from all owners. In 2023, the residents’ committee passed a resolution at a temporary owners’ meeting to not renew the contract with the existing Guangzhou Dongkang property management company in Foshan. Subsequently, because some residents’ committee members voluntarily stepped down to balance work and family, among other reasons, the actual number of committee members performing duties continued to decline, unable to meet the minimum number of members required by the Property Management Regulations and the community’s rules of deliberation. In October 2024, it was dissolved in accordance with law. The community’s self-governed property-management work fell completely into stagnation, and owners lost the main party for direct rights protection and supervision.

A large number of electric bicycles enter the community parking lot. Nanfang+ reporter Xiān Jūn, Jū Jun拍摄

Several residents who are actively seeking rights told reporters that during the first residents’ committee’s term and after its dissolution, the community’s property management service enterprise for a long time engaged in serious inaction and behaviors that violated the terms of the property service contract. For example: public-area cleaning and pest control were severely absent—dust in the community’s corridors, elevators, unit lobbies, and public walkways accumulated heavily; few people cleaned stains on floors and walls; garbage was not removed in a timely manner; maintenance of common landscaping was insufficient; large-scale tree cutting was carried out without the owners’ consent; equipment and facilities repair and maintenance were long delayed—community elevators frequently malfunctioned and made abnormal sounds; the majority of unit access control and monitoring systems were damaged and failed—outsiders could enter and exit at will, and community security was essentially a formality; fire-fighting facilities were past their inspection period and not repaired, and some were missing—after fitness equipment and spray landscape features were damaged, no one repaired them; responses to and handling of owners’ requests were extremely slow—some requests were delayed for months without being addressed; the company did not proactively disclose property service contents, the inflow and outflow of public revenues, the use of property fees, and the management of public revenues was chaotic; public revenue sources such as advertising revenue in public areas and revenue from renting out parking spaces were also not transparent, among others.

Ms. Chen said that precisely because the property service enterprise for a long time failed to fulfill basic service obligations, after owners paid high-standard property management fees they did not receive the corresponding services, and their lawful rights and interests were not protected. A large portion of owners were therefore forced to refuse to pay property management fees. This is not an unreasonable failure to pay; rather, it is a reasonable and lawful rights-protection action targeting the property company’s inaction.

Large areas of the community exterior wall are peeling off. Nanfang+ reporter Xiān Jūn, Jū Jun拍摄

The reporter followed owners to walk around the community and found that some building exteriors had large areas peeling off. Some common landscaping grounds were fenced off and used to pile up trash, while in the monitoring room there were multiple monitors showing black screens due to faults; the automatic status display also did not light up. A duty staff member was dozing off at the entrance. In the community parking lot, it was possible to see many electric bicycles and cars mixed together. A duty manager from the property company said its explanation was that the company had always been responding to owners’ requests, but it also had difficulties—for example, the electric bicycles owned by owners in the garage were forced in; the company could not drive them away. He claimed that the property company supports the formation of a residents’ committee.

A rules dispute leaves the residents’ committee unable to proceed

It is understood that to break the community’s management impasse, in December 2025 multiple enthusiastic owners of the community took the initiative to apply. With guidance from the community street office, they legally launched the preparatory work to form the next residents’ committee. Following the process, they established a preparatory group for the residents’ committee and advanced core tasks such as convening the owners’ meeting, selecting candidates, and revising the rules of deliberation.

During a key phase of the preparatory work, the Foshan Chanchen Shiwang Town representative of the preparatory group directly led to the complete halt of the preparatory work due to the main dispute in the old rules of deliberation of the community regarding the eligibility conditions for running as a candidate for the residents’ committee. Because the old rules were formulated earlier and did not take into account the actual situation of the property company’s breach of contract and the owners’ rights-protection actions, the clause stating that “paying property management fees on time and in full is a prerequisite before running as a candidate for the residents’ committee” has been officially deleted in the revised Guangdong Province Property Management Regulations. Most members of the preparatory group and many owners proposed that the unreasonable clause should be amended and the discriminatory threshold removed, so that all owners who follow the law and are enthusiastic about public welfare can participate fairly in the election.

However, the street representative of the preparatory group insisted on using the old rules of deliberation as the sole basis. They firmly refused to amend the proposal and required that “paying property management fees on time and in full” be an essential prerequisite for candidates. As a result, a large number of enthusiastic owners in the community who care about its development, are willing to serve owners without pay, and have the ability to perform duties—because they refused to pay property management fees in their rights-protection efforts—directly lost their eligibility to run.

Whose side should be listened to

On March 31, the reporter attended a discussion with some community owners and the person in charge of the Yijing neighborhood committee. This person in charge is the head of the residents’ committee preparatory group. He said that the current controversy mainly concerns the proposed Measures for the Formation of Candidates for Residents’ Committee Members. One clause is that candidates, within the two years prior to the date when the candidate formation measures are approved, who have violated agreements and continuously failed to pay property service fees for more than three months or cumulatively failed to pay for more than six months may not become candidates. The street office’s view is that the first owners’ meeting Rules of Deliberation includes a clause that candidates must have all property management fees paid in order to run for candidacy, and the second session must also follow this rule unless the owners’ meeting votes to abolish it. He said he had been working hard to coordinate, but the neighborhood committee is also a mass self-governing organization, so it is difficult to do.

A relevant person in charge from the subdistrict office told reporters that this is not his personal view; the preparatory group’s voting should be followed.

Peng Yu, a lawyer from Guangdong Liuli Law Firm who has long worked on legal affairs in the property sector, told reporters that in civil legal relationships, “where there is an agreement, follow the agreement; where there is no agreement, follow the law” is the core principle of application. The logic behind this rule is that in civil matters, parties’ autonomy of intent is fully respected. As long as the parties’ agreement does not violate mandatory provisions of law, it should take priority over any discretionary legal norms. For example, in areas such as contract performance and property distribution, the common agreements among owners and the community rules of deliberation generally have overriding effect. However, the right to elect and be elected for residents’ committee candidates is, in essence, a category of political rights related to citizens’ participation in managing community public affairs. Unlike ordinary civil rights, the establishment, exercise, and limitations of political rights must be explicitly prescribed by law; it is not allowed to restrict or deprive them through civil agreements on one’s own. China’s Constitution clearly stipulates that citizens’ political rights may not be restricted unless otherwise provided by law. This is the core boundary between public power interference and civil self-governance. The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress has clearly indicated in recent filings and review work that treating “paying property fees on time and in full” as a prerequisite for owners’ candidacy for residents’ committee members does not conform to higher-level laws such as the Civil Code and the Property Management Regulations; in essence, it constitutes an improper restriction on owners’ political rights. By the end of 2025, more than 27 provincial-level Standing Committees of the People’s Congress had completed revisions to local regulations related to property management, deleting such qualification restriction clauses, thereby unifying the standards for rule application at the legislative level. If the current rules of deliberation of a community still retain the content that “those who have not paid property fees may not run as candidates for residents’ committee members,” then because this clause conflicts with the provisions of higher-level laws and with the legislative review opinions of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, it should be determined to be an invalid clause in accordance with law and may not be applied in term replacement elections or daily management. If owners encounter such qualification restrictions, they have the right to assert their rights to the subdistrict office, the housing and construction department, or the people’s court to safeguard their lawful election rights.

Nanfang+ reporter Xiān Jūn

【Author】 Xiān Jūn

Nanfang Probe