(Yicai Global) Dec. 13 -- In response to a recent media report that "enterprises must pay 10 years of rent and a 20-year deposit for their proprietary commodity houses in a lump sum," the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development urgently admonished Beijing Xin Da Properties Co. (Xin Da Properties) on Dec. 11.

It immediately started to investigate whether one of the company's projects is implicated in renting to buy, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development reported on its official website.

It has not yet determined the plan to manage its project or fixed the rental price, payment method or amount of the deposit, the company countered. Though the investigation does not indicate the project is involved in collecting illegal rent or 20-year cash deposits, its customer service personnel failed to publicize the cash deposits they collected and other rental information as required.

The Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development instructed project development company Xin Da Properties to immediately engage in a comprehensive self-examination and rectification and further improve its project management.

Beijing introduced new policies on real estate market regulation on Sept. 30 last year to encourage developers to set aside some homes for rentals. The city subsequently developed residential land in Haidian, Daxing and other districts, with development companies holding various ratios of proprietary commodity homes.

The Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Beijing Municipal Administration of Urban Planning and State Land jointly issued a notice to stiffen their administration of company rentals of proprietary commodity housing in April, clarifying that these must all be rented to outsiders, not sold, and advising that a single rental term may not exceed 10 years.

The notice also directs that companies' proprietary commodity homes may not be rented to buy or sold in any other disguised manner. Developers doing so or selling proprietary commodity homes in other disguised forms will be blacklisted and suffer the severe sanction of withdrawal of their land use qualifications in Beijing, and even downgrade or revocation of their qualification to develop land.