Temporary Residence Registration Issues

[fanglu]

Hey everyone,

A question / call for opinions.

I'm living in flat in Beijing (its actually in a university, but I'm not a student there, and its not a dormitory). The flat itself is ok, but I'm having lots of trouble getting anyone to go with me to register with the police (that is, I haven't done the registration form of temporary residence thing), and have been living here about six weeks. I'm on an F visa, so don't need a residence permit.

I presume this is all because someone doesn't want to pay tax on the income from us (there are three foreigners who each rent a room) renting, so would prefer that no one knew we were staying here.

The problem is, the guy we rent from is not actually the owner (at least, so he says. On my rental contract he gaurantees that he is the owner.), he is just some guy who realised he could make some money by renting a flat and sub-letting it to foreigners, so even if he wanted to go with us to the police station, he doesn't have the necessary documents. He says that the actual owner does not live in Beijing, so it would be impossible for him to come and do the registration thing with us. I have no idea if this is true or not.

I asked my teacher about it, and she at first said we should just not worry about registering and if the police ever ask us why we haven't registered we should just tell them the whole story. But today, I presume after talking to some other people, she said we definately need to register and if its totally impossible we should move.

So, anyone have any advice? I'm going to keep hassling the guy we rent from about the owner, but assuming that gets no where, should I move? (The question is more difficult for one of my housemates, who stupidly aggreed to pay 6 months rent up front. I've only paid 2, and its been six weeks already, I can stay until the end of the two months and probably use up at least some of the one month's bond worth of time before he'd make me leave.)

If you don't register what is the worst that can happen?

[gougou]

If you don't register what is the worst that can happen?

That I am going to find out soon

By what I've heard, it's RMB 5,000, which you might get waived if you look at the officer in charge with sad enough eyes.

In your case, did you try tellling the guy renting the flat to you that you would go to the police? Taking the contract in which he assures that he is the landlord?

[heifeng]

Random thought:

I've always wondered if you spend a night in a hotel and have proof you registered there, and then go to register at the paichusuo, if you will still get in trouble, because you are technically registering at your place within 24 hours, as long as you say you are living there effective of that day (and not saying oh i moved in a month earlier...) and claim you have been traveling..

[Yang Rui]

Are you sure the landlord has to go with you in order to register? I just registered in Shanghai without my landlady. When I moved in, the agent and landlady both said there was no need to register, but a day or two after, a notice appeared on all the doors in the area saying that there would be a check-up. That scared me into going to police station. I took my contract, a photocopy of my passport, photocopy of my landlady's ID card, and the receipt from a hotel where I'd stayed the week before. They told me I needed a proof of residence, so I went to the juweihui and got one. They were very interested in my landlady's tax situation and phoned her up and had a very long and no-doubt interesting conversation in Shanghainese. I got what I needed, went back to the police station and registered with no landlady present.

No-doubt my landlady now hates me and is dreaming up schemes to raise the rent to claw back the tax she is now paying.

[cdn_in_bj]

Yes, that's right you just need to bring the landlord's ID - they don't have to be physically present. But from what I understand, the OP's situation is a bit more complicated because he is subletting and the actual landlord may not know about this.

[fanglu]

So I took gougou's suggestion and started on the (polite) threats. It didn't hurt that I had one of the fake registration certificates he had tried to make for us earlier or that he is also running a slightly dodgy business brokering english tutors.

Within 24 hours the actual owner miraculously returned from 'far away' and we all went to the neighbourhood committee to get the proof of residence. They (I'm not totally sure if it was the actual owner or the guy we rent from) paid 1500rmb, which I presume was tax on the middleman's lease. I suspect it was the guy we rent from because he looked very unhappy. Later when I tried to make some smalltalk with him he just said 'don't talk to me'.

When we went to the police station, they asked me when I'd moved into the place, but after shaking my head several times and shrugging they seemed happy to just point at the sign that said foreigners must register within 24 hours and look serious.

So all is now good.

True, the lessor guy hates us now and said he wouldn't renew our leases, but we were all planning on moving anyway, so its not really a problem.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

PS - the flier the police gave us said the maximum fine for not registering within 24 hours is 500rmb.

[roddy]

Glad that worked out, good luck with getting your deposit back when you move out

Re: fines. Maximum for not registering at the local police station is 500Y. For overstaying your visa it's 500Y per day, capped at 5,000Y.

[fanglu]

Glad that worked out, good luck with getting your deposit back when you move out

I'm kind of hoping they'll settle for - "I don't need to pay the last month's rent, you can just keep the deposit."

[gougou]

That I am going to find out soon

So I found out yesterday. When the officer asked me when I had moved in, I replied "May", which she didn't believe: "No, no, I mean when did you move into this flat?" - "May," I said again... She was a bit shocked, but after having the compulsory discussion about how 严谨 Germans are (which she continued to believe despite me having come to register half a year late), she was quite friendly and didn't even mention any fines.

(BTW, this time, the discussion was much more amusing then normally: "Yeah, we Chinese should be much more 严谨 as well. That way, everything would work better. Much better. Hey, I still need your landlord's phone number to complete this form. You don't have it? Ah, let's just put yours then, who cares...")

[muyongshi]

That's okay gougou.....my local psb doesn't even know what the word "registration" means. I always just take a copy of my passport (or if I have friends staying with me, their copy) and on one of the copies right my address and then the cops sit and look through the passport copies (no visa pages at all) and laugh at the pictures, guess, the nationality, etc and then about 15 minutes later look at me and say "Why are you still here? You can go!" and then set the papers on the desk and do nothing with them....

[gougou]

So you don't get a proof that you registered? Did you ever try to renew your visa?

[muyongshi]

No haven't had to do that yet...mine is a 2 year student visa, but the school should be the ones to renew it for me so I will let them worry about it

Great things about small cities where no one knows what to do.... (I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong)