What is neighboring right?

Neighborhood right is a legal term, which refers to the rights enjoyed by the owner or user of real estate when dealing with neighboring relations. Specifically, between the owners or users of adjacent real estate, any party has the right to ask other neighboring parties to provide convenience or accept certain restrictions in order to reasonably exercise its ownership or use right. Neighboring right is essentially the limitation and extension of ownership.

The owner or user of adjacent real estate shall exercise his own ownership or right to use under the principle of not harming the legitimate rights and interests of other neighbors. If the exercise of rights causes damage to the person or property of an adjacent person, the adjacent person has the right to demand to stop the infringement, eliminate the danger and compensate for the loss. When dealing with neighboring relations, the neighboring parties should understand each other and make concessions, and settle them through consultation in accordance with the principles of being conducive to production, convenient for life, solidarity and mutual assistance, and fairness and reasonableness. If negotiation fails, the people's court may be requested to solve the problem according to law.

The rights commonly exercised in neighboring relations include:

Adjacent parties have the right to pass through the historically formed passage within the land or building, and the owner or user of the land or building shall not obstruct or block it; If an adjacent party needs to temporarily occupy the other party's land for construction, paving, etc., the other party shall provide convenience, but the construction party shall use it reasonably, restore it to its original state after completion, and compensate for the losses caused thereby.

All neighboring parties have the right to use natural running water, and shall not block or discharge it without authorization; If the neighboring party must drain water through the other party's land, the other party shall allow it, but the user shall take measures to reduce the loss and compensate the other party for the loss.

When building a house or digging a ditch, you should keep a certain distance from the real estate of your neighbor's house, and you should not affect the foundation of your neighbor's house, nor pour eaves water or running water into your neighbor's land or house, nor should you affect the ventilation, lighting or life of others; If the roots and branches of all bamboo and wood in the neighboring party cross the border and affect the ventilation, lighting, firmness and normal use of other people's houses, the other party has the right to order them to cut off the roots and branches or cut down bamboo and wood, and if losses are caused, compensation shall be made.

The issue of neighboring rights is regulated by the General Principles of Civil Law and the Regulations on Property Management. In addition, the Supreme People's Court's Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Implementation of the General Principles of the Civil Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) also has relevant provisions.

■ Take the case as an example.

The compensation law of sunshine right is too general.

Judge Li Chuanwei of the Second People's Court of the Municipal Intermediate People's Court told the reporter that in recent years, with the improvement of people's awareness of rights protection, civil cases of neighboring rights disputes such as light blocking, noise and disorderly riding guardrail have increased year by year, showing a hot trend of complaints. A court can accept dozens of cases a year.

Li Chuanwei said that there are relatively few norms about sunshine right in China. From the perspective of civil law, only the General Principles of Civil Law has strict provisions on the adjacent relationship of real estate, and this provision is only a principled provision, that is, "it is conducive to production, convenient life, unity and mutual assistance, fairness and rationality". "Such a provision is too principled, and how to seek a balance between the parties in trial practice has become a difficult point for compensation." She said.

Another judge admitted to the reporter: "Article 83 of the General Principles of Civil Law stipulates that there are three forms of liability for infringing on neighboring rights: stopping the infringement, removing the obstruction and compensating for the losses. However, among the many cases of lighting rights and ventilation rights tried by the court, the court's judgment results are mostly the first two contents, that is, there are very few cases that can directly judge compensation for losses. "

Asked why, the judge smiled and said, "How much do you think sunshine is worth?" It is understood that the cases of neighboring rights that can be awarded compensation directly at present, such as lighting, are mostly cases with simple cases and little disagreement between the two sides.

How is the compensation calculated?

Judging from the existing laws and regulations, the amount of compensation for the loss of neighboring rights is often very small. Wang Yupu, the attorney of the design institute, pointed out with anxiety: "The compensation is relatively low, so developers often don't care about this economic compensation, forming the habit of solving everything with money, but in fact, compared with households or a unit, the right to enjoy sunshine and ventilation forever is tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands!"

Since there is a gap in the law, why not legislate as soon as possible? Some legal experts said that it is mainly difficult to draw a specific standard, such as the uncertainty of housing prices, the difficulty in refining sunshine hours and different people's different understandings of sunshine ventilation. Even in the same city and different places, the geographical conditions are very different and cannot be calculated by a fixed standard.

At present, many judges determine the amount of compensation for simple cases of lighting rights according to standards such as electricity price, but this amount is really small.

measure

Prevention beforehand is better than litigation afterwards.

In the interview, the reporter found that the "neighboring right" lawsuit usually happened after the infringement, but before that, the victim often turned a blind eye to the infringement, and the court mostly waited until the fait accompli before filing the case, thus delaying the excellent opportunity to nip the infringement in the bud.

A leader of the court said: "We are engaged in law, so naturally we pay more attention to neighboring rights such as lighting. We originally wanted to build a tall building in front of the court, but we stopped the infringement through legal channels before we started building it. " The reporter really saw that the building opposite the court only built three or four floors and stopped construction.

A legal expert reminded the masses that if they really want to get the "sunshine right", they should focus on "prevention beforehand" when the environment is infringed, instead of pinning their rights on "winning the case afterwards", so that the law can give full play to its preventive and deterrent role beforehand, rather than exerting its power only by executing judgments afterwards. Only in this way can the "sunshine right" be expected to get out of the embarrassing situation.

expect

Property law will fill the legal gap.

Nowadays, in large and medium-sized cities where land and capital are scarce, the phenomenon of narrowing the distance between buildings is very common, and disputes about "sunshine right" can be said to be common. But until now, the injured party has not enough legal basis to defend its "sunshine right".

Lawyer Gao of Golden Sunshine Law Firm is full of confidence and expectation for the introduction of "sunshine rights" compensation rules. He said: "As we all know, the draft property law is now under consideration, and the right to sunshine, as one of the many property rights to be maintained in the draft property law, will be refined, so the introduction of relevant compensation rules will not be too far away."

■ Cases of neighboring rights

In July 2000, a real estate developer located in the south of Zhonghuan Road was sued by 39 households located in the north of Zhonghuan Road, on the grounds that it blocked the sun and affected ventilation. This dispute over neighboring rights caused a sensation in 1999, and caused a traffic jam on Central Road for half a day because residents gathered to protest, and finally entered the lawsuit because the disputing parties failed to reach an agreement.

1999, a real estate company developed and built apartments on the south side of some residential buildings separated by Central Road. This apartment belongs to a high-rise building. During the construction of the project, residents protested at the construction site, sales offices and the central line. The main reason was that the apartments to be built in the future would definitely affect the lighting, which not only caused the real estate company to stop working for more than 40 days, but also caused the central line to be blocked for a long time. Under the auspices of government departments and grass-roots organizations, real estate companies negotiated with residents' representatives, and residents demanded high compensation, but the two sides failed to reach an agreement and reached a lawsuit.

During the trial of the case, the lawyer responded to the case from two angles:

1. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant's illegal construction was illegal because the plaintiff lacked understanding of the government's approval and management of the project, and collected the approval procedures and supporting documents for the residential apartment developed and built by the defendant to prove that the project was legal.

Second, although the residential apartment developed and built by the defendant objectively reduced the lighting time of the plaintiff, it did not constitute an infringement of the plaintiff's neighboring rights. The defendant's building not only meets the planning and management requirements of Tianjin, but also meets the sunshine standard of the Ministry of Construction on the renovation of old residential areas.

Due to insufficient evidence, the court finally rejected all the plaintiff's lawsuits.

After the judgment of the first instance, none of the 39 plaintiffs appealed. A protracted dispute over neighboring rights ended in the real estate company's victory.

Lawyer's review

The General Principles of the Civil Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) and Article 83 of the Civil Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) stipulate that the neighboring parties of real estate should correctly handle the neighboring relations in terms of water interception, drainage, transportation, ventilation and lighting in the spirit of being conducive to production, convenient life, solidarity and mutual assistance, and fairness and rationality. If an obstacle or loss is caused to an adjacent party, the infringement shall be stopped, the obstacle removed and the loss compensated. The right to light is an adjacent right related to property ownership. It is not an unconditional absolute right, but a conditional relative right. In the process of urban construction and development, it is an inevitable result that new buildings block existing houses. The reasonable range of lighting changes brought by new buildings to existing houses should be based on relevant laws and regulations and the administrative license of planning and fire department.

The new building should be a legal building that has gone through the relevant procedures of administrative examination and approval of planning, fire protection and other buildings, and the building spacing should meet the requirements. This legal new building is the legal protection of the existing buildings around.

Under normal circumstances, the administrative examination and approval of planning fire protection fully considers the statutory requirements such as spacing, shielding and fire protection, and meets the sunshine time stipulated by the Ministry of Construction. Such a new house does not constitute an infringement of existing houses.