2020-02-11

China Tech Unicorns Hike Rent 30pc on Quarantined Tenants

The Chinese netizens have a new target for their fury. China tech unicorn Ziroom is jacking up rents on quarantined tenants who can't move. It's also charging for services that currently aren't being offered because of the quarantine. Background on Ziroom from Mingtiandi: MAINLAND HOME RENTAL PLATFORM ZIROOM RAISES $500M FROM GENERAL ATLANTIC, TENCENT, SEQUOIA

Another firm, Danke, is charging rent even though tenants can't get into their apartments. Whether that is legal or not, Chinese netizens are pissed.

iFeng: 网友怒了!疫情当前自如被曝涨房租,蛋壳吃差价!公司解释被打脸
The epidemic has had a huge impact on all walks of life. Many companies are calling for rent reduction or exemption. At the same time, landlords have offered to offer tenants preferential treatment to overcome the difficulties. However, free tenants received news of price increases during this special period.

Recently, many tenants said that during the epidemic period, long-term rental apartment brands "Freedom" relocated for rent while inconvenient, driving up rents, and renewal rents generally increased by 10% -30%.

In response to this, feel free to respond, and there are many cases that are caused by long leases and short leases. They have followed up and basically reached consensus with the tenants. However, the tenants gave feedback and did not reach a consensus.

What is going on?

Tenant Complaint

Feel free to sit on the ground while the outbreak is underway

Recently, many freelance tenants have reported on Weibo the situation of freely renewing their prices.

Some netizens said that during the epidemic, tenants could not move or change their rents, and rent renewal increased by 10% -30%, with the highest price increase reaching 38.3%.

A dialogue with the manager also broke out. "Since our new leader aims to be profitable this year, the price increase will be higher after the epidemic."
Previously, when the tenant rented a house, the housekeeper said that he would not increase the rent for 3 years.
On the consumer complaint platform Black Cat, some tenants also reported that they were worried that it would be inconvenient to find a house during the epidemic period, so they wanted to renew their rent in advance before the expiry. Rent was 3230 yuan per month, raised to 3660 to 3690 yuan, an increase of nearly 500 yuan. During the communication, the staff of Zoran stated that the original price could not be renewed during the epidemic period, and it should be based on the market price.
Tenant dissatisfaction

Not only the rent has gone up, but also the service charge


Freedom this wave of operations caused dissatisfaction with the tenants. In fact, in addition to the issue of price increases, tenants who have been affected by the epidemic prevention and control can not return to their premises in a timely manner, and cleaning and maintenance services are not available.

According to the tenant's response, during the epidemic, normal cleaning and maintenance services could not be enjoyed. Some urban services have been suspended, but the service costs have not been waived.
There's much more at the link if you can read Chinese or want to wade through the machine translation. Here's an English article from supchina: Apartment Rental Platforms Apologize For Exploiting Customers During COVID-19 Outbreak
“To comply with orders from the government and reduce the epidemic’s negative impact on the rental market, Danke has decided to impose a zero-rent period that lasts at least 30 days on your property,” a Danke employee said in a WeChat group involving dozens of apartment owners. According to the person who shared the screenshot of this message on the Chinese internet, the policy has affected more than 70,000 apartment owners, whose properties are located in various cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu.

However, it turns out that Danke and Ziroom never exempted the tenants in those apartments from paying rent and service fees, even though many of them were unable to return home after the Lunar New Year holiday because of travel restrictions that have jammed up transport links across the country.

In a post (in Chinese) published on January 30, Weibo user @QwYkio said that she contacted Danke staff asking for a rent suspension on her apartment in Wuhan, which she was banned from entering as the entire city was in lockdown. Danke declined her request and threatened not to return her security deposit if she stopped paying rent. “Looks like I’m not the only victim. It doesn’t make any sense to me that I still have to pay rent given that I’m not in Wuhan and I can’t go back to Wuhan,” the angry renter wrote. “Do you have any conscience?”

On the other hand, a group of Ziroom tenants made complaints (in Chinese) about how the company unexpectedly raised their rents. According to a customer in Beijing who wanted to extend his lease in January, Ziroom said his rent would increase from 3,230 yuan ($463) to 3,690 yuan ($529) a month because the apartment’s market value had changed amidst the epidemic.

“To me, Danke and Ziroom have become synonymous with vampires cashing in on the country’s plight,” a Weibo user wrote (in Chinese). Others are calling for a boycott. Another Weibo user stated, “They have been gradually increasing rents over the course of the last few years, and that is the main contributor to China’s housing crisis. We need to boycott them or we will have no choice but to be exploited.”

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