In mainland China, property companies are known as a lucrative industry and are demonstrating a trend towards becoming organized crime-like syndicates. Shanghai lawyer Dai Peiqing, as a homeowner, has been involved in property rights protection and litigation, personally experiencing the syndicate-like behavior of property management and the darkness within the judicial system.
In recent years, conflicts between homeowners and property companies have continued to escalate, primarily due to the absence of homeowners’ committees, leading to infringements on homeowners’ rights. Chinese media revealed that property managers, developers, and related parties systematically obstruct homeowners’ meetings in order to protect their illicit interests.
Under the pretext of “property service contract disputes,” journalists conducted searches on the legal document website and found a total of 4,416,325 relevant documents.
Internet users have been calling for the abolishment of property management companies and demanding self-management of properties. “Our community pays annual property fees totaling 6.7 million yuan. With 30 staff members responsible for security and cleaning earning between 2,500 to 3,500 yuan per person on average, you can see how lucrative it is,” one user remarked. “Property management involving hundreds of households is a basic livelihood issue… Property management bullies homeowners like a crime syndicate boss.”
Facing issues such as poor property services and arbitrary fees, homeowners often choose to withhold property fees in order to protect their rights. Dai Peiqing, the Shanghai lawyer, is one of those homeowners. She is also one of the organizers of the homeowners’ committee in her residential community.
Dai Peiqing revealed to journalists that in the Jinqiao Tonghua Building where she lives, the property company which had been designated by the developer had been in control for 16 years, embezzling millions annually from public revenues such as parking spaces and billboards, as well as millions in property profits.
A property service contract indicated that on August 15, 2021, Ailechong Property Company and the developer signed a 20-year contract extending to August 15, 2041. However, according to relevant laws, when the property service contract between the homeowners’ committee and the property management company takes effect during the contract period, the contract automatically terminates.
The contract stipulates that when the contract ends, Party B (property company) shall promptly transfer the property management premises and other assets belonging to all homeowners to the homeowners’ committee; if the homeowners’ committee has not been established, the assets shall be transferred to Party A (developer) or managed by the neighborhood committee.
“Preparing to suck blood for another 20 years,” Dai Peiqing believes that the protection umbrella for property companies is the local street committee, which vehemently opposes the establishment of homeowners’ committees. This is because only through homeowners’ committees can homeowners demand back the public profits embezzled by the developer or property company, amounting to hundreds of millions.
“The establishment of a homeowners’ committee requires approval from the street committee and the neighborhood office. If they interfere and do not allow the establishment, you will never succeed. Why hasn’t it been established in 16 years? Because the first hurdle for establishing a homeowners’ committee is to have two-thirds of the homeowners vote. Without access to the real contact information of the homeowners, it is impossible to accomplish. This threshold blocks your progress.”
“The property company even has thugs, the security guards, who assault homeowners. Homeowners’ deliveries are thrown away by security guards, which have records of 110 emergency calls.”
Despite facing obstacles, Dai Peiqing persisted in contacting homeowners, but many houses were rented out. In June 2022, they established a homeowners’ rights protection association, posting the property company’s “major crimes” in the elevator, advocating for the non-payment of property management fees, and demanding the property company provide licenses, income statements, etc.
A civil judgment from the Pudong New District Court in Shanghai in May 2025 showed that in a case of a property service contract dispute between the plaintiff Ailechong Property Company and the defendant Dai Peiqing, the case was filed on April 14 and publicly heard on May 21. Dai Peiqing failed to appear in court without valid reasons, resulting in an absent trial judgment ordering Dai Peiqing to pay 13,555.62 yuan and 13,910.71 yuan in property fees to the property company within ten days of the judgment taking effect.
The judgment document contained Dai Peiqing’s defense statements:
1. The “Property Service Contract” signed by the plaintiff and the developer on August 16, 2021, is invalid. This violates Article 24 of the “Property Management Regulations,” where the developer should select a former property service company through open bidding, and once the contract expires, no longer have any relationship with the developer. The developer’s unlawful practice of hiring a property company with the same family name forms a syndicate with criminal characteristics.
2. The broadband and cable services of the property were sold to a third party by the developer, leading to homeowners being unable to use the services of state-operated telecommunications companies and forced to accept high-priced services.
3. Since the handover of the property in 2009, all parking fees, advertising fees, and other public revenues have been controlled and embezzled by the plaintiff and the property company’s family companies. Homeowners are oblivious of their rights and benefits. In 2017, without the consent and authorization of homeowners, the developer and property company unilaterally turned the green space into a parking lot, installing charging piles to seek greater profits illegally.
4. Unilaterally raising the prices of water and electricity.
5. The building poses serious safety hazards: severe water leaks, lack of elevator maintenance, long-term failure to issue invoices for property and utility fees.
Dai Peiqing told the journalist from Epoch Times, “I’ve handled cases for others my whole life. How come I didn’t show up for my own case? They notified me in April of the court date of late May. I provided evidence to challenge the lawsuit on May 7, so the trial couldn’t proceed and had to be canceled. It’s like saying a new case came in, and they have to give the other party time to respond because they’ve become my defendant.”
“Perhaps the judge wants to decide if my counterclaim is valid? He has a month to decide if my counterclaim is valid or not, then issue a ruling to me. After receiving the ruling, I have ten days to appeal the decision, retaining my right to appeal. If I don’t appeal after ten days, it means I agree to the ruling.”
According to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Civil Procedure Law, the court should examine whether the counterclaim meets the acceptance criteria. If upheld, the court can try the counterclaim together with the original claim; if not upheld, the court can rule not to accept it or handle it as a separate case.
She further explained, “What the property sues me for is directly related to their services. Not only did they fail to deliver proper services, but they also embezzled my money. So I have the right to demand compensation. This is the most important connection between the original claim and the counterclaim. For example, if the property company fails to fulfill its maintenance duties, and my house suffers water damage resulting in a loss of 5,000 yuan, the property company should compensate me. They turned greenery into parking lots without homeowners’ consent, reducing services, so they should reduce their service fees.”
“I not only filed the counterclaim, but I also sent two written counterclaims to the court. I posted them through the post office at 1 p.m. on May 7th. I’ve been waiting for their response. I’m puzzled that they chose to proceed with the trial forcefully, behaving shamelessly and recklessly. I’ve already submitted my appeal evidence to the court. I want them to remand the case for retrial and see how they handle it in the second trial.”
Dai Peiqing disclosed that she had considered canceling her lawyer’s license because of the high cost of litigation, such as the annual fee of 3,000 yuan, and the shared expenses at the law firm. However, she now wants to expose the darkness within the judiciary and uphold homeowners’ rights as a lawyer.
In recent years, there have been some successful cases of homeowners’ rights protection. The homeowners’ committee of the Shanghai Zhongyuan Liangwan City, with 50,000 residents, sued the property company, hired a professional lawyer and audit team, and audited the accounts of the past 20 years. In February 2023, the court ruled that the former property company should refund over 40 million yuan to all homeowners, dubbed the “most powerful homeowners’ committee.”
The homeowners’ committee of Jiyuan Community in Cangshan District, Fuzhou, won a lawsuit, reclaiming 3.4 million yuan in ground parking revenue. After the establishment of the homeowners’ committee in a community in Chengdu in 2023, the property management company returned over 9.4 million yuan in remaining property fees to homeowners.
Dai Peiqing believes that the courts collaborate with property companies in collusion. “How does the court usually operate? All those who fail to pay property fees are dragged to court, dealing with cases in batches, not wasting judicial resources. Unless bribery is involved or there is the syndicating of organized crime within the judiciary, they will handle cases this way.”
“Once they collude, they immediately summon everyone individually to sue, breaking down the cases to rule over them. An individual may only be involved in one infringement case, for example, if that person was assaulted, and the security hired by the property is criminal, to be considered part of organized crime, but separated, they no longer appear to be part of a criminal network. Originally meant for contract termination, it becomes impossible to terminate.”
Starting from 2019, the property service industry was included in the key areas targeted in the “crackdown on gangs and evil forces.” In 2020, Shanghai’s anti-gang office listed typical misconduct in the property industry, including interfering with the homeowners’ committee transition and monopolizing collective assets; using methods like cutting off water and electricity to pressure homeowners for property fees.
Dai Peiqing said, “This property was built in 2009, with property management from out of town. When I checked the legal entity, the developer acquiring the land was born in the 1980s, likely a front man. The security guards they hired are from society, ‘three no personnel’: no identity, no labor relations, not enrolled in social security, characteristic of organized crime. These security personnel cannot assume legal responsibility; the only thing they can assume is criminal responsibility.”
“In Shanghai’s Yuzhou International, that property is huge, and the property played it poorly, not greasing the palms of the Jinqiao Street Committee and neighborhood committees, so the property was taken down as a syndicate. Our property is also a syndicate; they whitewashed by not bribing and allowed to sign a twenty-year contract.”
She added, “During the pandemic, these ordinary people took to banging pots and pans, shouting that the government’s relief supplies were not received, but embezzled. In these aspects, the farther into urban-rural areas and rural areas, the more apparent the organized crime and unlawful activities become. In the city center, their concealment and deception are more entrenched.”
Dai Peiqing’s analysis suggests that Shanghai’s property companies can generally be categorized into three types. The first is state-owned enterprises with commercial backgrounds, which are civilized and play various means to infringe on homeowners’ rights; the second is entirely organized crime, illicit, hard to trace the true mastermind behind the scenes; the third type are local companies in Shanghai, originating from rural houses post-demolitions, which have become commercial houses. These neighborhoods have property fees as low as a hundred yuan a year, almost negligible.
Hence, they manage to maintain operational costs regardless. Additionally, their advertisements align with the Communist Party’s ideologies, either brainwashing or exploiting. “I summarize it as such – either brainwashing or bloodsucking,” she remarked.