"Post-judgment Mediation + Debt Conversion" Cleverly Resolves Lease Disputes

This article is from: Anhui Legal Affairs Daily

Wuhe County Court:

“Post-trial mediation + debt conversion” cleverly resolves a housing leasing dispute

Our report (Correspondent Guo Jiw en) Recently, the People’s Court of Wuhe County concluded a housing lease contract dispute. Because the defendant failed to appear for the trial, the presiding judge, Wang Zhenhui, adhered to the principle of “closing the case while settling matters and achieving harmony among people.” After the trial, he actively coordinated with the township government to carry out joint mediation. At the same time, he helped bring about a reasonable change of the plaintiff’s creditor party. Ultimately, the dispute was successfully resolved.

The plaintiff in the case is a village-level joint-stock economic cooperative in a village of Wuhe County. The defendant is Tan Mou, the investor of a certain operating unit and a sole proprietorship enterprise in Wuhe County. In October 2024, the plaintiff and the defendant signed the “Rural Collective Economic Organization Leasing Contract of Anhui Province,” agreeing that the defendant would lease the plaintiff’s standardized straw collection and storage center, with an annual rent of 120,000 yuan. However, the defendant did not pay the rent as agreed. After repeated demands from the plaintiff proved fruitless, the plaintiff sued in court. When the case was scheduled for trial, the defendant did not appear despite lawful notice, and the court proceeded with a trial in the defendant’s absence in accordance with the law.

After the trial concluded, Judge Wang Zhenhui did not simply issue a judgment. Considering that the case involved the rights and interests of collective assets of the village, and that the defendant had a debt dispute with the village committee, a direct judgment could further intensify conflicts and affect subsequent performance. At the same time, the defendant indicated that they would also sue the village committee seeking performance of the related debts. To effectively protect the lawful rights and interests of the village collective, while also ensuring a substantive resolution of the dispute and preventing both sides from falling back into litigation, the judge promptly contacted relevant leaders of the township government where the parties were located and leveraged the township’s grassroots governance capacity to carry out joint mediation.

During mediation, because the village committee and the defendant Tan Mou had a debt dispute, the defendant proposed to transfer their creditor’s claim against the village committee to the village joint-stock economic cooperative. The defendant would offset the disputed debt owed to the village economic cooperative. The judge legally supported this approach and guided both sides to complete the procedures related to the transfer of the creditor’s claim, to ensure that the ownership and rights over village collective assets were clear. After multiple rounds of communication and coordination between the judge and leaders of the township government, the plaintiff and the defendant ultimately reached a mediation agreement. This achieved a balance of rights and interests between both sides and properly resolved a lease contract dispute with a subject amount of 120,000 yuan.

Through this mediation, the Wuhe County Court fully leveraged the strengths of coordinating judicial adjudication with grassroots governance. It not only clarified the ownership and rights of village collective assets, but also took into account the actual circumstances of both sides. By using a flexible mediation approach, it achieved unity between legal effect and social effect. The proper resolution of this case is a concrete manifestation of the court’s commitment to the concept of judicial service for the people. It also provides an effective practical example of “court + township” for resolving grassroots conflicts and disputes, truly achieving “a concluded case, matters settled, and people at harmony.”