A Nanjing man and one of his four former spouses are in hot water after it has emerged they were involved in a fake marriage scam the man was operating that helped out of town women to buy real estate in our City.
Nanjing’s Qinhuai District People’s Court recently held that the man, surnamed Ding, had married four women between 2017 and 2019 for the purposes of acquiring the necessary credentials for them to purchase property under the city’s regulations. In each case, the marriage lasted for just 2 to 7 days.
Under local law, in order to buy an apartment or other form of real estate, one must have a local household registration (the infamous “hukou”) or be married to someone who has.
Out of towners who are single need work a certain period in Nanjing before they can become eligible to climb on the property ladder.
That’s the part of the law of which Ding was taking advantage, reports the global edition of China Daily.
As for the other offender who was one of Ding’s wives, her crime was that she was already married. The woman, surnamed Wang, had exploited a local loophole in the process for marriage registrations.
In Nanjing, when a couple apply for marriage, checks for existing or former spouses do not extend beyond the City borders.
Wang, who was in actual fact married in Fujian Province, came clean to the Nanjing authorities feeling remorseful for her bigamy, and in the hope that the court may invalidate her marriage to Ding.
Fang Chun’e, a judge with the Qinhuai Court, said, “Their behaviour violated public order and impaired their honesty and credit. … They damaged social justice, including the regulations toward property purchases”.
The two were also barred from governmental work and public institutions’ key posts for 5 years. The media report cited makes no mention as to how the divorces from the other three women were so quickly granted nor how much Ding was being paid by the women.
