Multiple properties in Shenzhen consecutively face issues: frequent disputes over cashback refunds, how should responsibility be determined?

Recently, multiple residential developments in Shenzhen have been exposed in succession for disputes involving wastewater backflow into homes and leaking issues. From the Green City Yuyulan Ting in Guangming to the Hao Fang Tianji Garden in Nanshan, and then to the Star-Moon Cloud Residence in Longhua… In many cases, events caused by clogged drainage pipes leading to sewage backing up show an astonishingly similar pattern—difficult responsibility attribution, and difficult rights protection for homeowners.

In these cases, the damaged homeowners almost without exception found themselves stuck in a “no place to claim compensation” predicament. The developer replied that the home had already passed delivery and acceptance, and the problem was due to the owners’ renovations. The property management company said it had already fulfilled its inspection obligations and suggested that the homeowners sue all neighbors upstairs. In the end, homeowners faced ruined furniture, a new home they could not move into, and a long road of rights protection.

An Aoyi News reporter’s review found that these disputes expose a deeper problem: during peak periods of residential renovation and in everyday property management, who should cover the maintenance blind spots of public pipes? And who should pay for the losses caused?

Conflicts and disputes

Pipe backflow disputes occur frequently, and multiple Shenzhen developments get “caught in the net” one after another

At the Green City Yuyulan Ting in Guangming, homeowner Ms. Li’s new home hadn’t been occupied yet when she encountered backflow through a bathroom floor drain. The blockage pulled out from the pipes by the property management company consisted of debris from renovation—mud, sand, and scraps of wiping cloth. The developer responded that the pipe had passed acceptance, and the clogging was caused by human factors from some homeowners after delivery, and that the clogging location was in a “zone that routine inspection cannot easily cover.”

Owner-submitted photo

The experience of Ms. Zhang, a homeowner in Hao Fang Tianji Garden in Nanshan, was even more dire. In February of this year, while she was celebrating the Lunar New Year at her hometown, she received a notice from the property management company that because the sewage pipe had been blocked by foreign objects, waste water backed up into her home on the 31st floor, with estimated losses of up to 300k yuan. During nearly a month of rights protection, Ms. Zhang contacted the Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the subdistrict office, and community staff for mediation. But the property management company’s position was clear: “It’s not our responsibility. We should get you to sue more than a dozen households upstairs. We won’t pay a single yuan that isn’t ours.”

Ms. Tian from the Star-Moon Cloud Residence in Longhua also faced a similar issue. Her newly renovated home had been finished for only two months when the public sewage drainage pipe was blocked by cement and sand-stone debris, causing sewage backflow. The living room and four rooms inside the house were completely soaked with wastewater, and in the deepest spot the standing water reached four to five centimeters. The developer’s warranty maintenance department shifted responsibility to the property management company, while the property management company said it was difficult to trace the specific responsible party and could not provide compensation.

The reporter’s search found that on the People’s Daily Online “Leaders’ Letters and Visits” message board, an owner in a community in Hangcheng Subdistrict, Bao’an District also reported that because the toilet in the guest bathroom backed up and the entire home was flooded, a screwdriver measuring 10.5 centimeters was later removed from the main pipe. After negotiating with the property and the real estate party, the real estate side said, “The party bearing responsibility is not the real estate.” The subdistrict office responded that due to difficulties in determining responsibility for the accident and substantial differences in the dispute, the three-party coordination failed to achieve substantive progress.

Conflicts and disputes

Whose responsibility is it when a clogged pipe causes sewage backflow?

After carefully analyzing these cases, several common predicaments can be found.

The attribution of the responsible party is the biggest headache for homeowners. The developer responded that “the house has already been handed over, so it has nothing to do with me,” while the property management company believed that “I have conducted regular inspections; it’s a problem caused by the neighbors upstairs.” But the damaged homeowner said that they are stuck in the middle and cannot find a party to take responsibility.

So should the neighbors upstairs be held responsible? The other knot is that the source of the clogging material is hard to trace. Whether it is the mud and wiping cloth taken out from the Green City Yuyulan Ting or the cement and sand-stone debris cleared out from the Star-Moon Cloud Residence, both point to improper practices during the renovation process. The problem is that dozens of neighboring households share a single sewage pipe—whose trash was thrown in and whose cement was poured in are often difficult to verify.

A chief evaluation expert and lawyer at the Third-Party Social Dispute Evaluation Center of the Southern People’s Think Tank, lawyer Zang Jian, said in a previous interview and research that when the origin of the clogging material cannot be determined, if the jointly using homeowners cannot produce evidence proving that the clogging is unrelated to them and there is no circumstance for exemption, then, according to the provisions of the Civil Code, the jointly using homeowners should jointly bear liability for compensation. However, the time, money, and effort costs of such litigation may be difficult for ordinary families to accept.

Should the property management company compensate? In the Guangming Green City case, the property management company clearly stated that the clogging location was in a concealed area that routine inspections could not cover. This claim raised homeowners’ doubts: if routine inspection cannot find the problem, then how exactly should the property company’s maintenance obligation be implemented in practice?

Lawyer Mao Peng from Guangdong Shengdian Law Firm pointed out that while a third-party cause leading to damage to facilities and equipment may become a possible exemption reason for a property company in tort liability compensation claims, it may not necessarily constitute an exemption in breach of contract claims. “Even if foreseeable clogging in concealed areas cannot be predicted through routine inspections,” it does not mean the property management company is not allowed to, in advance, post notices in concealed areas prohibiting the disposal of construction waste, install cameras in advance, or increase the inspection frequency for areas with potential safety hazards. To establish that it has no fault, the property company must truly carry out various property management tasks and implement risk prevention and rectification plans in advance, rather than simply exempting itself by saying that “the required routine inspection actions have already been completed.”

Is the developer also hard to escape responsibility? In multiple cases, developers refused to take responsibility by citing that “the property maintenance warranty period has already ended” or that “acceptance at delivery was合格.” Regarding this, both Zang Jian and Mao Peng said that if the pipes do not meet national standards, or there are施工 quality defects, and they are still within the warranty period—even if the pipes have already been handed over to the property management company—the developer should bear corresponding responsibility.

Another issue that is easy to overlook is that homeowners themselves may also bear part of the responsibility. The reporter noticed that in judicial practice across different regions, if a home has been left vacant for a long time and the homeowners fail to discover the backflow in a timely manner and handle it, courts often recognize that the homeowners have fault for “insufficient management,” and then rule that they should bear part of the losses themselves.

Lawyer’s suggestions

Mobilize efforts from multiple parties to prevent issues at the source

Faced with all kinds of difficulties in responsibility attribution, how can disputes be reduced from the source, and how can effective rights protection be pursued after damage occurs? Lawyers provided suggestions.

Zang Jian advised that preventing from the source is the most important. For example: add removable inspection ports, promote the use of anti-clogging floor drain devices, introduce intelligent pipe monitoring systems, encourage homeowners to install upstream filtration devices when renovating, and require the property management company to regularly inspect drainage pipes, etc.

The property’s daily operations should properly fulfill its duties: conduct regular inspections according to regulations and the contract, and keep evidence properly, such as a complete chain of continuous evidence including inspection records (with signed confirmations), rectification notices, and surveillance video.

Homeowners, upon discovering that their rights and interests have been damaged, should immediately seal the site, preserve video evidence, and if necessary, use notarized evidence preservation. Determine the amount of losses through judicial appraisal. If negotiations fail, file a complaint with the housing and urban-rural development competent department, or sue in court. When choosing defendants, generally, select the tortfeasor who is at fault. Courts usually support claims for direct property losses, such as decoration and renovation losses, damaged furniture and appliances, etc. If the actual rental relationship can be proven to exist, rental loss may also be claimed.

How to get out of the “no one claims responsibility” predicament

After sorting through the cases above, it is not hard to see a common thread: once sewage backs up into the home, homeowners almost always fall into a rights-protection cycle of “the developer doesn’t manage, the property doesn’t compensate, and the neighbors can’t be found.” Even if they eventually go to court, many cases still have to go through a long appraisal and litigation cycle, and there are not a few instances where people win in court but lose time.

What makes these disputes especially troublesome is “how responsibility is determined.” Every party has its own reasons, but the common result is that the damaged homeowner alone bears the loss.

When grassroots mediation organizations such as streets and communities step in, they also face many difficulties. Because there is no unified standard for responsibility attribution, it is hard to reach consensus on compensation amounts. Mediation often can only be “each side yields a step,” making it hard to fundamentally solve the problem. When a similar situation happens again, the same predicament will remain, and it is also difficult to impose effective responsibility constraints on the developer and the property management company.

The frequent occurrence of sewage backflow disputes reflects a blurred zone of rights and responsibilities in public facility management. To get out of this predicament, it is not enough to rely only on post-event lawsuits or mediation. It is more necessary to set rules in detail at the source: establish rigid constraints on the property company’s maintenance responsibilities for public pipes, the developer’s pipe quality responsibilities during the warranty period, and homeowners’ responsibilities for standardized management during renovation.

In addition, grassroots governance can also build a more normalized negotiation platform for such disputes. For example, after an incident occurs, convene a coordination meeting in which the property, developer, damaged homeowners, and relevant neighbors all participate, bring in professional appraisal institutions to make responsibility determination more transparent… build communication channels so that people encountering problems can find a place to be heard. Perhaps this can help break the “passing the buck” predicament.