Wang Ying and Du Bibo only got married a fortnight ago but already they are queueing up in the divorce registry office in Shanghai’s Xuhui district to dissolve the marriage.
With big smiles on their faces – a facial expression that marks them out as not your normal warring couple – they explain that the mortgage officer at their bank recommended divorce as the best way around a new property tax.
A capital gains tax on housing sales was intended to cool China’s sizzling property market, but since it was announced last Friday it has had the exact opposite effect: a panic has been unleashed.