Couples from Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province are lining up for divorce after the city released new polices to put restrictions on home purchases.
Some 100 couples queued up to file divorce papers at the civil affairs bureau of Gulou district in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province on Tuesday, a staff from the bureau surnamed Zhou told the Global Times on Tuesday.
"The number of people seeking divorce is increasing rapidly these days. Some 60 couples filed for divorce the day before yesterday," Zhou said.
Many couples who went to file for divorce seemed happy, with some of them even holding hands like newlyweds. They included pregnant women as well as some senior couples, reported the Yangtze Evening Post.
And instead of moaning about broken relationships, these couples were peacefully talking about house purchase and the new policy, according to the newspaper.
The Nanjing government issued new restrictions on the number of homes residents can buy, in order to rein in the overheating housing market.
The new restrictions, set to go into effect on Monday, prohibit registered residents who already own two homes from buying any new ones and non-registered residents who already own one from buying any new or secondhand apartments.
Statistics from the Nanjing bureau of civil affairs show that 340 couples got divorced on Monday, the Yangtze Evening Post reported.
"The divorces are obviously linked with the new policy. Only 114 couples filed for divorce on September 26 last year," an official from the bureau of civil affairs was quoted by the Yangtze Evening Post as saying.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics on September 19, 64 out of 70 Chinese cities surveyed in August reported a month-on-month increase in new home prices.
As price hikes extended all over China, many cities, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou - resumed home purchase restrictions, while several others raised minimum deposits.
In Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, couples who want to file for a divorce should make an appointment less than a week in advance.
"They are getting divorced just to buy more houses," an employee who works in a bureau of civil affairs in Guangzhou told the Global Times on Tuesday on condition of anonymity.
