In 2019, Client P purchased the subject property through an intermediary. After signing the property purchase contract and paying the majority of the purchase price, the property was subject to multiple rounds of seizure due to the seller being involved in multiple debt cases. As a result, not only was it impossible to proceed with the property transfer, but the property also faced the risk of auction.
The legal team handling the case, taking into account the specific circumstances of the case, developed a detailed representation strategy. They argued that the prerequisite for lifting the execution was to deliver the remaining purchase price to the execution proceedings, in accordance with Article 28 of the “Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Handling of Objections and Appeals in Execution Cases.” Therefore, they initiated an objection procedure as a third party to the first-seizing court to lift the execution. However, during the process of executing the payment of the remaining balance, the court was unable to accept the full amount due to it exceeding the execution amount of the case. The parties repeatedly transferred funds to the court, but all were returned. Without paying the full remaining balance, the execution could not be excluded. After the handling lawyer communicated with the enforcement judge multiple times, held face-to-face meetings, and submitted opinions, and after the enforcement objection and the first-instance lawsuit on the enforcement objection were both dismissed, the second-instance court ultimately adopted the handling lawyer's opinion based on the court interview records submitted by the handling lawyer regarding the requirement to pay the full purchase price and reference materials from similar cases. The court revoked the original ruling and the first-instance judgment and ruled that the property involved in the case could not be enforced.
Subsequently, the handling lawyer used the favorable judgment as a basis to file enforcement objections on behalf of the client with the six subsequent seizing courts, all of which were supported. After multiple rounds of procedural proceedings, all seizures were finally lifted, and the client successfully completed the property transfer registration, successfully recovering the property.
In practice, the issue of remedies for third parties under multiple rounds of seizures is a complex and challenging problem. For example, when filing an objection to enforcement, listing the subsequent seizure creditors as third parties can include all creditors in the litigation, and the judicial ruling will have res judicata effect on them. This approach does indeed improve efficiency, but third parties may not fully grasp the information of other subsequent creditors, and some creditors may be difficult to notify, increasing the difficulty of fact-finding. Another view holds that the court handling the sequential seizure may, at its discretion, proactively lift the seizure measures, or third parties may file objections against all seizures simultaneously after obtaining a confirmatory judgment. However, since sequential seizures typically involve multiple different courts, and even within the same court, due to the separation of adjudication and enforcement, enforcement judges must have sufficient grounds to lift seizures, proactive measures such as lifting seizures are difficult to implement. Therefore, this issue remains to be further refined through judicial system design.
The agency process for this case spanned five years, during which time it experienced a sharp rise in housing prices followed by a decline, the court's inability to accept amounts exceeding the execution target, the expiration of the court's seizure without renewal followed by a new seizure, and difficulties in lifting the seizure due to errors in the real estate agency's property number entry. However, the client consistently provided full trust and adequate support, and the handling lawyer fulfilled the trust, achieving a satisfactory agency outcome.
