A dispute between two families over which one is the rightful owner of a sprawling property in Fengtai district was heard in two courts recently, with one court favoring one family and the other favoring their rivals.

The Xia and Xing families had both laid claim to the property in Chengheli, Changxindian county.

The Xia family had proof that it had owned the home in the ancient past while the Xing family had proof it had used and maintained the home in recent decades.

Eight members of the Xia family had taken Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to Fengtai court in the first case, claiming it had wrongfully issued a property ownership certificate to the Xing family.

Xia Qingyan told the court the contested property that had contained 11 suites had belonged to his father Xia Zhuoyun, who was part of a large and wealthy family.

He showed the court a property certificate issued by the Beijing government in 1951 that said the Xias owned the home.

However, Xing Zhi, the current householder, said his parents, long-time hired workers for the Xia family, had lived in the lodge near the main house for many years and were gifted the home by the Xia family.

According to Liu Zhenqing, a representative of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the house was nationalized between 1951 and 1956 and divided into many smaller rooms.

At that time, eight rooms were returned to the Xia family and remain their property while the remainder were rented out by the government.

Liu said the Xing family had renovated the property many times in recent years and received approval from the relevant departments and the commission issued the property ownership certificate to Xing Zhi in 2004. The Xia family lost this first case.

Shen Gui, deputy director of Peking University Law School, told Beijing News that the Xia family lost any claim to ownership of the home when it was nationalized, so the certificated from 1951 was worthless.

During the second case in Beijing No 2 Intermediate Court, the judge ruled in favor of Xia, cancelling the property ownership certificate issued by the commission.

The second decision takes precedence over the first decision.

Liu said the commission did not recognize the court's decision.

Lu Xingguo, Xing's attorney, told Beijing News that many people who had owned homes that were nationalized in the 1950s still hold on to those old property certificates and would be interested to know whether they can get back their ancestral homes.