Law Commons^™

Private And Public Construction In Modern China, Gregory M. Stein

Scholarly Works

During the past three decades, real estate development in China has proceeded at an astonishing pace, with much development occurring before China’s 2007 adoption of its first modern law of property. Investors thus spent hundreds of billions of dollars in the real estate market of a nation that, during most of this period, had no formal property law. How can a huge nation modernize so rapidly and dramatically when its legal system furnishes such uncertainty? And how can this happen in a nation that still purports to subscribe to socialist ideology?

I set out to answer these questions by interviewing …

Commercial Leasing In China: An Overview, Gregory M. Stein

Scholarly Works

In an effort to understand how and why investors and other professionals are willing to participate in China’s unsettled commercial leasing market, I recently interviewed Chinese and Western experts in the real estate field, including lawyers, judges, developers, bankers, government officials, and academics. This Article summarizes my findings about China’s commercial leasing market. China’s new property law provides some insight into how China’s real estate market functions, but a full picture requires an understanding of how these professionals have operated in a legally uncertain environment, both before and after the new law became effective.

Mortgage Law In China: Comparing Theory And Practice, Gregory M. Stein

Scholarly Works

The first Chinese law focusing specifically on property rights became effective on October 1, 2007, which means that China's breakneck real estate development before that date occurred in a nation with no published law of real estate. Thus those who have been buying, selling, and lending against Chinese real estate have been operating in a world of significant legal uncertainty. Even with the new code, property law as it is practiced is likely to diverge significantly from the published rules.

This Article examines Chinese mortgage law as it actually operates in the field, focusing on both legal and business issues. …

Doomed To Re-Repeat History: The Triangle Fire, The World Trade Center Attack, And The Importance Of Strong Building Codes, Gregory M. Stein

Scholarly Works

Imagine this: You are a member of a commission charged with recommending changes to the building code of a densely-packed urban city, say New York. Your recommendation is that high-rise office buildings are overly safe and that your city should relax its codes. That, more or less, is what happened in New York in 1968. Fifty-seven years after the Triangle Waist Company fire, in which 146 people trapped in the upper floors of an unsafe building burned, jumped, or fell from a collapsed fire escape to their deaths, New York City relaxed its safety rules for high-rise buildings.

In his …

Acquiring Land Use Rights In Today's China: A Snapshot From On The Ground, Gregory M. Stein

Scholarly Works

For the interested observer of real estate markets, China is the most fascinating place in the world today, and the coming years promise to be no less intriguing than the recent past has been. This Article offers an overview of how a specific segment of the Chinese real estate market - the acquisition of land use rights - operates in practice, from both a legal and business perspective.

I recently interviewed dozens of Chinese and Western experts who are taking part in one of the greatest real estate booms in world history. My conversations with these real estate developers, bankers, …

The House That Ruth Built, Gregory M. Stein

Scholarly Works

Yankee Stadium may be scheduled for demolition at the end of the 2008 baseball season, but the storied ballpark will live on in the memories of all baseball fans. "The House That Ruth Built" examines the legal history of the Yankees in their four New York homes: Hilltop Park, the Polo Grounds, Shea Stadium, and Yankee Stadium.

This chapter, which describes a variety of real estate law issues the Yankees have faced, focuses on Yankee Stadium itself. Designed to be baseball's first true showplace, the Stadium was huge, luxurious, and fireproof, which differentiated it radically from the other parks in …