{"id":34193,"date":"2025-11-05T11:58:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/34193\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:58:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:58:06","slug":"court-refuses-to-block-chinese-property-law-tallahassee-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/34193\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Refuses to Block Chinese Property Law \u2013 Tallahassee Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Jim Saunders, The News Service of Florida<\/p>\n

TALLAHASSEE \u2014 A divided federal appeals court Tuesday rejected a request to block key parts of a 2023 Florida law that restricts people from China from purchasing property in the state.<\/p>\n

A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, said plaintiffs did not have legal standing to challenge one major issue in the law and ruled against the plaintiffs on two other issues. The overall effect was to reject the plaintiffs\u2019 request for a preliminary injunction.<\/p>\n

The case has focused heavily on part of the law that prevents people \u201cdomiciled\u201d in China from purchasing property in Florida, with some exceptions. Under the law, such people are each allowed to purchase one residential property up to two acres if the property is not within five miles of a military base and they have non-tourist visas. Three of the plaintiffs are in the United States on visas, while one is seeking asylum.<\/p>\n

But in Tuesday\u2019s 63-page majority opinion, Judge Robert Luck said the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge that part of the law because of reasons such as not being domiciled in China.<\/p>\n

Luck, who was joined in the opinion by Judge Barbara Lagoa, detailed the circumstances of each of four individual plaintiffs. For example, he wrote that plaintiff Yifan Shen, who has a work visa, has lived in Florida since 2019 and signed a contract in April 2023 to purchase a home in Orlando. The law applies to people who did not own \u201cany interest\u201d in property before July 1, 2023, the opinion said.<\/p>\n

The opinion said \u201cShen is not domiciled in China\u201d and is domiciled in Florida, which means the law doesn\u2019t apply to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to Shen, she has lived in the United States since 2016 and in Florida since 2019, her employer is trying to obtain a permanent labor certification for her, she \u2018plan(s) to apply for permanent residency in the United States,\u2019 and she intends for the Orlando home to be her primary residence,\u201d the opinion said. \u201cShen, therefore, is present in Florida and intends to remain indefinitely. The fact that Shen hasn\u2019t obtained permanent immigration status doesn\u2019t change the domicile analysis, because Florida law allows noncitizens subject to removal to establish Florida as their domicile.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, filed in 2023 in federal court in Tallahassee, contends that the restrictions violate constitutional equal-protection rights and the federal Fair Housing Act and are trumped by federal law. Other plaintiffs are Yongxin Liu, Zhiming Xu, Xinxi Wang and Multi-Choice Realty LLC, a real-estate broker.<\/p>\n

Chief U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor in 2023 also refused to grant a preliminary injunction, though his ruling differed from the appeals court on the standing issue.<\/p>\n

As they approved the law, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers pointed to a need to curb the influence of the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party in Florida. But opponents said the law was discriminatory and improperly conflated people from China with the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

In a dissenting opinion Tuesday, Judge Charles Wilson described the law (SB 264) as \u201cpart of a modern resurgence of \u2018alien land laws,\u2019 which were prevalent in the early part of last century but fell out of favor around the same time as other laws restricting property ownership based on race or ancestry.\u201d<\/p>\n

While saying he had \u201cdoubts about the majority\u2019s analysis regarding plaintiffs\u2019 standing to challenge SB 264\u2019s purchase restriction,\u201d Wilson focused his dissent on arguments about equal-protection rights and whether the federal government\u2019s authority to screen foreign investments trumps the state law. That authority is carried out through what is known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CIFUS.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn sum, the CFIUS process \u2014 informed by this nation\u2019s commerce, foreign policy, and national security experts \u2014 does not target identified countries or nationalities, conducts thorough risk review of individual transactions, and allows for negotiation with parties to mitigate risk while allowing safe transactions that strengthen our economy to proceed,\u201d Wilson wrote. \u201cMeanwhile, SB 264 \u2014 informed by state representatives and a governor without national security expertise \u2014 targets Chinese domiciliaries, blanketly bans all transactions which fall under its ambit, and fails to afford parties any flexibility, undermining national economic and diplomatic leverage. The power \u2018to regulate foreign commerce\u2019 has long been understood as \u2018an obvious and essential branch of the federal administration,\u2019 yet here Florida flouts these principles of federalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs also sought an injunction against parts of the law that require people who are domiciled in China to register information about property they own in Florida and require that all people buying property in Florida sign affidavits saying they are complying with the 2023 law.<\/p>\n

The majority opinion, for example, rejected arguments that the requirements violate the federal Fair Housing Act because they are discriminatory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe registration requirement directs that property owners who are domiciled in China register their interests in Florida real estate; it does not restrict anyone from owning property, and it does not require or permit a person to refuse to sell to, rent to, or negotiate with anyone,\u201d Luck wrote. \u201cAnd the same is true of the affidavit requirement. It mandates that every purchaser of Florida real property sign an affidavit saying their purchase complies with SB 264.\u201d<\/p>\n

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