After Wendra Liang lost her deposit twice on flats she ended up not living in, she felt frustrated.

 

"I'd been living in a hotel for almost a month, which is just not very much fun," recalled Liang, a 23-year-old American.

 

"Many foreigners have bad experiences when they arrive in a Chinese city. Seeking and finally settling on a flat can be a nightmare of disorganized agents, demanding landlords and lost deposits."

 

Of course, any city in the world can present such hassles. But in China, the challenges are particularly acute. According to Li Ji a public relations officer at 5i5j, one of the leading real estate agent firms in Beijing there are no uniform legal requirements for either landlords or tenants.

 

Landlords, therefore, have free rein to draw up sometimes unfair contracts or simply sell an apartment and kick a tenant out.

 

Many landlords are often not concerned with how happy residents are, said Andrew Horowitz, general manager of Easy City Solutions, which helps expatriates set up in China.

 

"The landlord just wants the cheque to be deposited into his bank account every month," he said.

 

Getting a contract signed, said Horowitz, an American who has been in China for more than three years, is more about having cash on hand or in a Chinese bank than having the proper forms or a good track record as a renter.

 

"Usually these contracts get done with a pile of cash, and if it doesn't get done, then you wind up waiting a couple of days," he said.

 

"Some landlords you can do that with, but some rent the apartment out from under you."

 

In Liang's case, after signing her lease, she realized she couldn't pay the rent as she was waiting for a paycheque to come.

 

She let the landlord know of the situation. But by the time Liang was ready to pay and move in, the landlord had rented to someone else.

 

"It was sort of my fault," Liang said. "But I thought she could wait just a while because I had signed a contract and paid a deposit. I was definitely going to move in."

 

Although finding an apartment may take a little patience, foreigners have things a lot better than 15 years ago.

 

In the 1980s and into the '90s, most Chinese lived in housing provided through their workplaces, and expatriates lived in designated compounds. The government first allowed foreigners to buy real estate in 1993.

 

China's construction boom today means there is usually no shortage of apartments in major cities. But many flats are geared either towards Chinese tenants or wealthy foreigners. For the influx of middle-income to low-income earning expatriates moving to China, finding the right space for a decent price can be difficult.

 

Many renters find agents in newspaper listings or on the Internet. The agents often don't know the apartment they're showing and are sometimes at the mercy of the landlord as much as the renter.

 

When Liang first started dealing with agents, "they would call at all hours and then not be able to give good directions to the apartment," she said.

 

Of course, agents also sometimes have trouble with foreigners and can lose money when, for example, the landlord asks for cash to even show the apartment.

 

When Daniel Yang, a new agent with Golden Keys in Beijing, took a few foreigners around to look at apartments, he believed he was doing a good job. "I immediately set out to find some flats suitable for them," he said in an e-mail.

 

But when lease-signing day came, the clients "suddenly claimed that the receipt cost (paperwork preparation) must be included in the rent," Yang said. "At the beginning, I am sure the couple agreed to pay the receipt."

 

The misunderstanding cancelled the deal, and both Yang and the owner were left with little to show for their work. What's more, as "competition is very tough," the time Yang wasted cost him money.

 

Be prepared

 

With no strict rental rules and no legal recourse if something goes wrong, foreigners are sometimes asked to register when they buy an apartment, Horowitz said.

 

That means renters need to have their documents in order and copies of the ownership papers of the landlord to take to the Public Security Bureau. The rules can vary from city to city, Horowitz said, but the key is to "be prepared."

 

Foreigners should also have enough cash to pay for at least three months' rent and their passports, visas and work documents.

 

Once that's covered, renters should be prepared for a long hunt. It can be done quickly, but other times it can take weeks or even months to find the right place.

 

During the search, it's important to check "every little detail," Horowitz said. You're often "doing business with people who sometimes can't see further than the front of their noses in terms of the relationship. (Landlords) want to get the job done now, and a lot of landlords come in from out of town to do this. These are investment apartments."

 

This also means a tenant should check all the meters water, gas and electricity and figure out how to pay these bills.

 

These may be common sense rules, Horowitz said, but in an unregulated market, they can come back to haunt renters. "These things don't matter until you have an emergency," he said.

 

Liang finally did find a place to her liking. The ordeal had exhausted her, but at least she could start focusing on her life in Beijing.

 

Now Liang tells friends both Chinese and foreign to walk out if they feel something is wrong with a place. "It's hard when they're telling you there are millions of people looking at the apartment, but you just can't take something you don't feel is OK," she said.

 

(China Daily December 18, 2006)