ybc’s right; I’ve been living in beijing for a year now and have been paying some attention to the local property market scene; the rules change every other month and recently new rules were published to make it harder for a foreigner to buy a flat, and that is on top of a number of recently added taxes to be levied only when you sell the property. Recently a friend (born and raised in china so speak fluent mandarin but he spent the last decade or so in the US and has gotten used to the US way of things) bought a flat; half way into escrow the property agent called my friend and said the seller wants to cancel the deal; my friend said “sure pay me double the deposit as it says on the contract and the deal is off”. To make a long story short, the so-called seller turned out not to be the title holder of the flat (he now claims he’s the brother of the flat owner), and the property agent and the seller teamed up to convince my friend to just take back the deposit and walk away. Consolation is it seems they’re at least willing to give my friend back the deposit.
Now imagine you don’t speak the language and you’re normally thousands of miles away …. hmmmmmmm