There are a growing number of married couples who are filing for divorce in Shanghai. Most of these couples are happily married but are filing for divorce for convenience.
These couples are filing for a "fake" divorce because they are determined to save money upon purchasing of a new home.
Rumors are spreading that effective Sept. 1, couples who divorced would still be recognized for a whole year as married under home purchase policies. When a married couple purchases a home, taxes and down payments are higher.
Even data from Didi Chuxing showed that the amount of trips to divorce registration offices have tripled from Aug. 29 to 30.
Tang and his wife filed for divorce. When he and his wife got married, they bought an apartment but now they are looking into buying a new one.
"My wife doesn't have an apartment under her name. If we divorced and bought an apartment under her name, we will save more than 100,000 yuan ($15,000) in sales taxes," said Tang.
He added, "We just don't want to waste money. Why don't we spend that 100,000 yuan on something more meaningful, for example, a luxury trip to Europe for the family? Even though we are apart legally, we don't regard ourselves as divorced. We are still happy together."
Wang Yongyong is a 58-year-old woman from Shanghai who divorced her husband last year. They did this in order to save more than 20,000 yuan in taxes when they purchased an apartment for their son.
"When my husband and I were at the office, about five other couples besides us didn't look like those whose marriages were on the verge of splitting up," she said.
She explained that she was influenced by her friends on WeChat. She said, "At least three people in our WeChat group of 20, who used to be classmates in junior high school, got divorced to dodge the limits on home purchases."