Before signing a lease, check the ownership certificate and any mortgage, and pay everything by transfer with the purpose noted

Cost

Free. Take your ID to the real-estate registration office (不动产登记机构) once, and the check takes half an hour. The hard part is getting the landlord to show the ownership certificate in person.

What you get

Before signing, the landlord must show you proof of identity and the real-estate ownership certificate. A landlord with no certificate must produce other documents proving the right to rent the place out. The landlord must also cooperate when you look up and verify the home's information, which is a duty that administrative regulations place on the lessor. If you haven't signed a contract yet, take your ID to the real-estate registration office of the city or county where the home is, and you can look up several things. What you can find out is: the basic facts about the home, whether there are co-owners, whether there is a mortgage or a right-of-residence registration, and whether it has been sealed. After signing, you can use the lease contract to look up the registration result. This step matters because the rule "a sale does not break a lease" has two exceptions. If the home was mortgaged to a bank before it was rented out and was later auctioned to pay the debt, you cannot demand that the new owner let you stay under the original contract. The same goes for a home that a court had already sealed before it was rented out. When a court auctions a home and the lease gets in the way of an earlier mortgage right, the court removes the lease before the auction. Conversely, if the home was rented to you first and you had moved in, and the landlord only mortgaged it afterward, the mortgage does not affect your lease. If the home is sealed or its ownership is disputed so that you cannot live there, you can end the contract. If someone else asserts a right and you cannot live there, you can demand to pay less rent or none. Paying everything by transfer with a note such as "rent for such-and-such home, such month" is the author's experience: if a dispute comes up, it shows that you paid and what the money was for.

Notes

Of the things you can look up before signing a contract, who the owner is is not one. So match the name on the ownership certificate against the landlord's ID in person. Have the landlord come to the signing in person, and if the landlord cannot, ask for a power of attorney. If a sublandlord (二房东) is subletting to you, you need the original landlord's written consent. For rights such as ending the contract or paying less rent, if the landlord does not accept them you have to sue in court. A first-instance case under the ordinary procedure must by rule be concluded within 6 months, though this can be extended, and you generally pay your own lawyer's fees. No regulation directly requires noting the purpose on a transfer; that is the author's experience. You can run the same check before signing a contract to buy a second-hand home, and after signing you also need to register an advance notice (预告登记); see §15.14 (advance notice registration).

Evidence grade

A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.

Sources

1. State Council (2025). Regulations on Housing Rental (State Council Order No. 812, in effect September 15, 2025) (Article 9, item 1: "Show the tenant identity documents, the real estate title certificate of the housing to be leased, or other materials proving that they have the lawful right to lease it, and cooperate with the tenant in lawfully looking up and verifying the relevant information on the housing to be leased") [in Chinese]. https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/202507/content_7032956.htm
2. Ministry of Natural Resources (2024 amendment). Interim Measures for Querying Real Estate Registration Materials (Articles 8, 19, 20 and 21) [in Chinese]. https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/2024/issue_11506/202408/content_6966482.html
3. Ministry of Natural Resources (2025). Decision on amending the Interim Measures for Querying Real Estate Registration Materials (Ministry of Natural Resources Order No. 18; Article 21, item 3 is changed to "whether the real estate is subject to a registered mortgage, a priority notice registration, an objection registration, or a registered right of residence") [in Chinese]. https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/2026/issue_12546/202602/content_7057456.html
4. National People's Congress (2020). Civil Code (Articles 405, 723, 724 and 725) [in Chinese]. https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/fl/202006/t20200602_463888.shtml
5. Supreme People's Court (2020). Decision on amending 27 civil judicial interpretations, including the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Trade Union Law of the People's Republic of China in Civil Trial Work ([2020] No. 17; item 21, point 6 amends former Article 20 of the interpretation on urban housing lease contracts, which after the articles were renumbered is Article 14: "(1) the house was already mortgaged before it was leased, and ownership changes because the mortgagee enforces the mortgage; (2) the house was already lawfully seized by a people's court before it was leased") [in Chinese]. https://www.court.gov.cn/fabu/xiangqing/282621.html
6. Supreme People's Court (2004). Provisions on auctioning and selling off property in civil enforcement by the people's courts ([2004] No. 16, Article 31, paragraph 2; after [2020] No. 21 deleted Articles 5 to 7 it became Article 28, paragraph 2) [in Chinese]. https://www.court.gov.cn/shenpan/xiangqing/713.html
7. Supreme People's Court (2020). Decision on amending 18 enforcement-related judicial interpretations, including the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Seizure of Railway-Transported Goods by the People's Courts ([2020] No. 21) [in Chinese]. https://www.court.gov.cn/fabu/xiangqing/282661.html
8. On keeping evidence and putting a note on bank transfers, see the two items on bride prices and IOUs in §8

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 15, tip 6. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer