Law

Promote special legislation to clarify the main responsible person for the safety of old houses

2026-02-03   

As a large number of urban buildings in China enter the "middle-aged and elderly" age group, the safety hazards of old houses are becoming increasingly prominent, becoming a major livelihood issue related to the safe operation of cities and the safety of people's lives and property. At present, housing safety assessment mainly relies on regular manual inspections and periodic appraisals, which are costly and time-consuming. Lack of long-term, online, and intelligent monitoring methods for slow developing hidden dangers such as settlement, tilting, and crack propagation makes it difficult to issue timely warnings in case of emergencies. This is mainly due to the lack of unified application standards and data interfaces for new technologies and methods in the field of housing safety inspection and appraisal, such as IoT sensing, drone inspection, and building information modeling (BIM) applications. Grassroots management departments lack professional technical personnel and digital management tools, and a large amount of information still remains in the paper archives stage. Moreover, the data systems of relevant departments such as housing and construction, emergency management, and fire protection are independent and have not been able to achieve interconnectivity of basic information, safety hazards, monitoring data, and remediation status of buildings, making it difficult to support global assessment and accurate implementation of housing safety risks. Suggestions should be made to strengthen top-level design, coordinate at the national level, accelerate the establishment of the "National Urban Old House Safety Examination Intelligent Platform", and promote the digital transformation of housing safety management. Build a "housing safety and health code" system to achieve "one room, one file, one code". Establish a national unified platform and standard archives, led by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development, to build a national level urban housing safety management platform and develop a unified digital archive standard for housing safety. It is mandatory for all regions to conduct a comprehensive survey of basic information for urban houses over 25 years old and input it into the system, forming an "electronic ID card" that covers property rights, design, and previous inspection and maintenance records. Implement the "Housing Safety and Health Code": Based on regular physical examinations or real-time monitoring results, generate dynamic "safety and health codes" (such as green, yellow, and red codes) for each building, and associate them with a unified address code. The public can scan the code or search on the platform to understand the safety status of the house, risk warnings, and progress of governance. Improve regulations and standards, and solidify full chain responsibility. Promote special legislation or amendments, study and formulate the "Regulations on the Safety Management of Urban Housing Use" or revise relevant laws, clarify that the owner (or user) of the house is the main responsible person for safety, and has the legal obligation to regularly entrust physical examinations and timely eliminate hidden dangers. Establish recommended physical examination cycles for houses of different ages and types, and implement mandatory physical examinations for specific old houses. Establish a collaborative governance and mandatory disposal mechanism, clarify the daily inspection responsibilities of streets (townships) and the regulatory backup responsibilities of county-level governments. Classify the physical examination results into four levels: A, B, C, and D according to the degree of danger of the house. Grade A: No hazardous components, the building structure can meet the requirements for safe use; B-level: Some structural components are classified as hazardous components, but they do not affect the safety of the main structure and can basically meet the requirements for safe use; C-level: Some load-bearing structures cannot meet the requirements for safe use, and some parts of the house are in a dangerous state, constituting a local dangerous house, usually requiring maintenance and reinforcement; D-level: The load-bearing structure can no longer meet the requirements for safe use, and the entire building is in a dangerous state, constituting a dangerous building. It usually needs to be stopped from use or dismantled as a whole. For dangerous buildings identified as C or D levels, the platform automatically pushes warning information to relevant departments, initiates joint supervision and emergency response procedures among multiple departments, and ensures closed-loop rectification of hidden dangers. Strengthen technological empowerment and enhance the level of intelligent monitoring and early warning. Promote the application of intelligent monitoring technology, and encourage the promotion of low-cost and high reliability IoT sensors in key old buildings (such as prefabricated panel buildings, mixed use commercial and residential buildings facing the street, etc.) to monitor key indicators such as tilt, settlement, vibration, and cracks in real time. The data is automatically uploaded to the platform, and real-time alerts are issued for abnormal situations. Build an "AI+Remote Diagnosis" auxiliary system that integrates artificial intelligence image recognition technology, encouraging the public or inspectors to upload photos of abnormal parts (cracks, leaks, deformations) of the house through a mobile app. The system will conduct preliminary intelligent analysis, risk warnings, and guide professional institutions to intervene. Exploring blockchain certification technology, in pilot cities, key information such as housing safety inspection reports, maintenance records, and disposal results will be uploaded to the blockchain for certification, ensuring that the data is authentic, trustworthy, and tamper proof, providing a basis for liability tracing and insurance claims. Innovate policies and safeguard mechanisms to guide social governance. Expand funding channels and clarify the subsidy responsibilities of local finance for the management of dilapidated housing for low-income and extremely poor families. Research will include the cost of regular safety check ups in the scope of use of housing special maintenance funds. Encourage the development of "housing safety insurance" and establish a new model of "testing+insurance+service". Establish a mechanism for data openness and public participation, while ensuring privacy and security, to orderly open up desensitized macro data on housing safety to society in accordance with the law, and encourage universities and enterprises to use data for research and innovative applications. Open up channels for reporting and consulting hidden dangers on the platform, and form a joint force for social supervision. (New Press) (Author Zhang Qiang, a representative of the 14th National People's Congress and a Level 6 employee of Taixing Power Supply Branch of State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd.)

Edit:Linian Responsible editor:Jiajia

Source:legaldaily

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