Prosecutors charge 30 over phony divorce certificates

Pudong New Area prosecutors have taken on 27 cases this year in which defendants used fake divorce certificates to buy and sell real estate, local media reported Monday.

The 30 people involved in the cases were property buyers and sellers, real estate agents and certificate forgers, according to a report in the Xinmin Evening News. They employed the phony certificates to evade taxes on property sales or circumvent restrictions on real estate ownership.

In one case, Pudong New Area People's Prosecutor's Office charged a homeowner surnamed Cao with using a forged certificate to sell an apartment to a woman surnamed Kang, the report said.

The real estate agents who represented Cao and Kang suggested that they get a fake divorce certificate to avoid paying tax on the sale of the property, which would save Cao 30,000 yuan ($4,941).

The agents helped Cao and his wife obtain a fake divorce certificate so they could transfer ownership of their apartment so it was under his name alone. Then they got another certificate for Cao and Kang so they could pose as a divorced couple when they went to the government agency to transfer ownership of the apartment.

The certificate allowed them to claim that transferring ownership of the property was part of their divorce settlement, which isn't taxable.

The prosecutor's office found that Cao and Kang paid their real estate agents more than 100,000 yuan to handle the sale and forge the certificates.

Pudong New Area People's Prosecutor's Office charged Cao, Kang, two real estate agents and a middleman with forging State certificates and legal documents.