


































Advances in Politics and Economics 
ISSN 2576-1382 (Print) ISSN 2576-1390 (Online) 

Vol. 5, No. 3, 2022 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape 

72 
 

Original Paper 

Dilemma and Analysis of Installing Elevators in Old Residential 

Buildings under the “One-vote Veto System” 

YiLong Li
1 

1
 Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu, China 

 

Received: July 18, 2022       Accepted: August 20, 2022      Online Published: August 23, 2022 

doi:10.22158/ape.v5n3p72          URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/ape.v5n3p72 

 

Abstract 

With the gradual entry into the aging society, the installation of elevators in existing residential 

buildings has gradually become an important “people’s livelihood” issue of social concern. But the 

transformation process has been slow. This paper believes that the “One-vote Veto System” is an 

important obstacle to the slow progress. The “One-vote Veto System” violates the legislative spirit of 

the Property Part of the “Civil Code” and should be considered by balancing the interests of various 

parties.  

Keywords 

Installing Elevators Old Residential Buildings One-vote Veto System 

 

1. The Contradiction and Urgency of Installing Elevators in Aging Communities is Increasingly 

Prominent 

With the promotion of urbanization, people‟s living standards and material conditions have been greatly 

improved. The renovation of elderly facilities in old residential areas has become one of the important 

contents in the field of people‟s livelihood. Most elderly people still live in old residential areas. As an 

important part of the renovation of old residential areas and barrier-free public space planning, the 

installation of elevators in existing residential buildings is an important livelihood initiative to deal with 

the aging problem of urbanization. Promoting the installation of elevators in existing residential 

buildings can better deal with the people‟s livelihood predicament caused by urbanization and aging in 

a transitional society, and is also an important practice to solve the shortage of infrastructure supply for 

the elderly at home.  

Faced with the growing desire of residents to install elevators in old residential areas, local 

governments and their functional departments are also actively planning and promoting the installation 

of elevators in existing residential areas, but the progress is slow. As of June 29, 2017, only 45 



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73 
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elevators had been installed in Beijing despite years of efforts to upgrade old buildings with elevators, 

but 43 of them were installed in one residential area alone. In addition, the number of successful 

elevator installation cases in Shanghai, Nanjing, Harbin, Xi „an and other cities only number in single 

digits. In particular, Chengdu implemented the Administrative Measures for the Addition of Additional 

Electric Elevators at Existing Residential Buildings on December 18, 2015, but the implementation is 

slow and difficult due to limitation by the requirements such as the consent of all owners with respect 

to the addition of an elevator unit.  

Taking Beijing as an example, although the installation of elevators for existing residential buildings 

has long been on the government‟s livelihood project agenda, several authorities of Beijing 

Municipality jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Adding Elevators for Existing Multi-Storey 

Residential Buildings in Beijing as early as 2010. However, the principle of applying for adding 

elevators, i.e. “the application shall be subject to the consent of the property owners in the unit which 

will be directly affected by the lighting, ventilation and noise caused by the addition of elevators”, 

endows the property owners with the “veto power” against the adding of elevators. This has become a 

major obstacle to the implementation of practical works. Currently, there are 2.37 million elevator-less 

units from the 4th to the 6th floor in Beijing, including 44,000 units for central units and 1.93 million 

units for city-owned units. All the units which have successfully added elevators are directly owned by 

central government and fully funded by the government, and no city-owned units have been 

successfully added. 

 

2. “One-Vote Veto System” Becomes the Key Factor Hindering Elevator Installation 

The working thought of a local government of controlling contradictions at the source establishes a 

“one-vote veto system” for the installation of elevators in existing residences, in other words, some 

administrative measures specify that “a written agreement shall be reached by the owners of the unit 

where the elevator is located and the agreement is notarized by a notary organ, so as to reduce the 

occurrence of contradictions at the source”, or “the consent of the owners of the unit who are directly 

affected by the lighting, ventilation and noise after the installation of the elevator shall be obtained” and 

so on. Finally, after the preliminary work, often because a floor of one or two low-level users because of 

cost, noise and other issues raised objections, making the preliminary work “in vain”, resulting in the 

project on hold.  

 

3. “One Ballot Veto System” Violates the Legislative Spirit of the Part of Property Right of the 

Civil Code 

With regard to the issue of installing elevators on existing houses, some local governments usually 

formulated relevant administrative measures for the purpose of avoiding disputes; the “one-vote veto 

system” prescribed in such measures does not clearly define the owners‟ rights and interests and is not 

appropriate in itself. The establishment of voting right in the Property Rights Law shall not be confused 



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with the establishment of policy promotion as prescribed in the Administrative Law.  

3.1 There Are Fundamental Differences between the “One-Vote Veto System” and the Property Rights 

Law in Terms of Manner of Denial 

Only Articles 279, 970 and 974 of the Civil Code appear in the whole Civil Code, and the word 

“unanimously approved” appears in these three articles, but such three articles do not apply to the 

installation of elevators. However, in Article 278 (Note 1) of the Civil Code, any resolution may be 

passed so long as the number of votes required for passing the resolution is satisfied. The result of the 

voting shall not be affected whether the other votes vote against the resolution or abstain from voting.  

In addition, the weighting of an owner‟s voting rights is linked to the exclusive area he owns. Due to the 

introduction of the condition “area” in the voting on resolutions under Article 278, for example, when an 

owner has purchased a house with the exclusive area more than 1/3 of the houses in the community, if 

that owner declines to vote or votes against the resolution on matters specified in Section 1 (6) to Section 

1 (8), the vote is void or rejected. If an owner has purchased a house with the exclusive area more than 

half of the houses, then all matters must be voted with the participation of this owner, and approved by 

this owner in order to be passed. In such a case, the owner has “the veto”. 

3.2 The Owner Has the Right to Vote, not a Veto 

There is a misconception that all people are equal before the law and that in a voting, the affirmative vote 

shall be the majority vote, and that to ignore his objection is an infringement of his right. Such an idea is 

wrong and confuses the right to vote with the right to decide. According to Article 33 (Note 2) of the 

Constitution and Article 4 of the Civil Code, the equality of all is reflected in the equal right to vote, not 

the right to decide. No one has the right to influence the will of another person, but it is the number of 

votes, not the will of a person, that determines the results of a vote. So in the relevant elevator litigation, 

there has never been a majority owner who sued for the minority owner “not to oppose” or “agree”, 

because every owner‟s voting right is protected by law.  

3.3 Owners’ Co-Ownership Is not Joint Ownership and Cannot Use Article 301 of the Civil Code to 

Claim the Veto Right 

It is wrong to think that joint ownership in Article 301 of the Civil Code should be used to claim the 

consent of all the owners.  

In joint ownership, the common property is not divided into shares. During the period of joint ownership, 

the jointly owned thing cannot be divided into parts and enjoyed by each joint owner respectively, but 

each joint owner enjoys its ownership, the right of each joint owner extends to all the jointly owned thing. 

Owners‟ co-ownership obviously does not conform to this characteristic. For example, income from 

elevator or wall advertising is owned by all the owners, but is divided in accordance with the law.  

In addition, the owner‟s common part and the exclusive part are bound to each other and inseparable. If 

the owners‟ co-ownership is joint ownership, in combination with Article 301 (Note 3) of the Civil Code, 

the owner must obtain the consent of the other owners when he sells his house.  

In addition, generally speaking, there are three types of joint ownership: (i) Property jointly owned by the 



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spouses. (ii) Property jointly owned by the family. (iii) Property inherited in common. There is no joint 

ownership of the owners. Therefore, Article 301 of the Civil Code does not apply to joint ownership with 

the owners, but Article 308 (Note 4) of the Civil Code should be applied to be regarded as joint 

ownership by shares.  

A vote to dispose of the common part to be added by the owners, not the private part, so it is not necessary 

to obtain the consent of a certain owner, unless the added elevator occupies the private area of a certain 

owner. In the policy of elevator addition in various areas, it can be found that if the added elevator 

occupies the private part to be added by the owners, the consent of the said private part shall be obtained. 

For example, if the elevator shaft needs to occupy the private yard on the first floor, the consent of the 

first floor shall be obtained, and in this case, the first floor owner is equal to the veto power.  

When the work of elevator addition was first started, in order to avoid contradictions at the source, local 

governments issued implementation plans of elevator addition basically giving the owners the veto 

power. However, as the work of elevator addition continues to go ahead, although the veto power has 

avoided disputes to some extent, its disadvantages are soon appearing. Based on the foregoing, in general, 

low-story owners have little or no need for elevators. But after they object to elevator addition, for 

high-story owners, especially those who have a greater need for elevators, their living environment and 

quality of life cannot be improved because of the decision to install elevators is rejected. Owners‟ needs 

for elevators are different, and the “veto power” enjoyed by owners makes the resolution to install 

elevators easily rejected, leading to installation of elevators, a project of people‟s livelihood, in trouble.  

 

4. Be Careful in Using the “Veto Power” and Balancing the Interests of Multiple Parties 

The installation of elevators in the existing houses should, in light of the laws and regulations of the 

planning and construction, focus on the detailed planning and construction, better coordinate the 

interests of all parties, smoothly implement the installation of elevators in the existing houses, and 

build a system design that gives consideration to the overall interests of owners and the legitimate 

rights and interests of individual owners. The “veto power” cannot objectively reflect the interests of 

the majority of owners, and should not be used as a way of voting on the installation of elevators in the 

existing houses. In the process of formulating relevant administrative laws, the governments should be 

cautious in using the “veto power”, and should draw on the existing laws to balance the public interests, 

and enact the “higher-level law” in accordance with the Legislative Law of the People‟s Republic of 

China. Local governments should earnestly push ahead with the installation of elevators in the existing 

houses on the basis of “laws to abide by”.  

In response to the predicament of elevator installation caused by the “veto power”, in recent years, the 

voting consent ratio has been changed in most areas, from the original one hundred percent voting ratio 

to “double two-thirds”. There are regulations on the voting consent ratio of property owners for 

elevator installation in old residential areas in ten provincial capital cities (or centrally-administered 

municipalities) including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Nanning, Nanchang, 



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Changsha, Lanzhou and Xining. Except that the<Implementation Plan of Elevator Installation for 

Existing Multi-Story Residential Buildings in Xining>implemented in 2017 provides that the 

conditions of elevator installation shall be met only with the consent of all the property owners and the 

absence of objections from interested parties, other cities require the voting consent ratio of “double 

two- thirds”. Beijing, Tianjin and Nanning and other cities require that other property owners shall not 

expressly object or shall obtain the consent of the property owners of the occupied exclusive areas; and 

Guangzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing adjust the voting rules in a timely manner according to the Civil 

Code.  

 

References 

Beijing Daily. (n.d.). 45 Elevators Added to Old Buildings in Beijing, 43 in the Same Community, 

[EB/OL].  

Chen, J. Y. (2017). Research on the Current Development and Countermeasures of Adding Elevators to 

Existing Residential Buildings in Beijing. China Market, 2017(05), 99-100, 118. 

https://doi.org/10.13939/j.cnki.zgsc.2017.05.099 

General Office of Xining Municipal Government. (2017). Notice of the General Office of Xining 

Municipal Government on Forwarding Implementation Plan of Elevator Installation for Existing 

Multi-Story Residential Buildings in Xining [EB/OL] (2017-11-03) [2021-06-15]. 

Yang. T. (2017). Thinking on the Dilemma of Installing Elevators in Existing Houses under the 

Phenomenon of One-Vote Veto: Focusing on Article 78 of the Property Law. Forum of Science 

and Technology Association, 2017(11), 54-56. 

 

Notes 

Note 1. Article 278 of the <Civil Code> The following matters shall be jointly decided by the owners: 

(1) Formulating or modifying the rules of procedure of the owners‟ congress; (2) Formulating or 

modifying the management covenant; (3) Electing the owners‟ committee or replacing the members of 

the owners‟ committee; (4) Selecting or dismissing property service enterprises or other managers; (5) 

Using the maintenance funds for a building and the affiliated facilities thereof; (6) Raising maintenance 

funds for a building and the affiliated facilities thereof; (7) Renovating or reconstructing a building and 

the affiliated facilities thereof; (8) Changing the purpose of common parts or using common parts to 

carry out business activities; and (9) Other major matters relating to common rights and joint 

management rights. Any matter jointly decided by the owners shall be voted by the owners who 

account for more than 2/3 of the exclusive area and by more than 2/3 of the total number of the owners. 

A decision on any of the matters specified in Items 6 to 8 of the preceding Paragraph shall be subject to 

the approval by more than 3/4 of the owners who participate in the voting, and by more than 3/4 of the 

owners who participate in the voting. A decision on any other matter specified in the preceding 

Paragraph shall be subject to the approval by more than half of the owners who participate in the voting, 



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and by more than half of the owners who participate in the voting. 

Note 2. Article 33 of the Constitution: All persons holding the nationality of the People‟s Republic of 

China are citizens of the People‟s Republic of China. All citizens of the People‟s Republic of China are 

equal before the law. The State respects and protects human rights. Every citizen enjoys the rights and 

at the same time must perform the duties prescribed by the Constitution and laws. 

Note 3. Article 301 of the <Civil Code> Where a co-owned immovable or movable is disposed of, or a 

major repair is made to, or the nature or purpose of a co-owned immovable or movable is changed, the 

consent of the divided co-owners holding 2/3 shares or all joint co-owners shall be obtained, unless it is 

otherwise stipulated between the co-owners. 

Note 4. Article 308 of the Civil Code: Where the joint owners make no agreement on whether the 

jointly owned immovable or movable is under joint ownership by shares or joint ownership, or such 

agreement is unclear, the joint ownership shall be regarded as joint ownership by shares unless there is 

a family relationship among the joint owners. 

 

 

 


