The simmering issue of property rights in China has burst into the open with the upcoming expiry of residential leases in several wealthy cities and a contentious plan to charge homeowners to renew them.

The Communist party abolished land and property ownership when it swept to power in 1949 after China’s civil war. The agricultural reforms in the 1980s and the privatisation of housing in the 1990s that jump-started the economy have created a patchwork of rights and leases that fall short of full ownership.

These stopgap measures are once again in the spotlight with the upcoming expiry of 20-year residential land use rights in Wenzhou in eastern China, which has fallen on tough times. Leases granted in the 1990s will also soon come due in Shenzhen and other coastal cities, although the more common tenure of 70 years means most of the current generation of urban homeowners will hand the problem on to their heirs.