Shanghai - In an attempt at stopping improper and unsafe rental practices -- such as group renting -- Shanghai announced on Monday that it had drafted a new rental regulation.

A 23-year-old IT worker in Shanghai in the apartment she shared with eight other renters. [Provided to China Daily]

Until April 20, the municipality will accept submissions of public opinion on the draft. The 31-item proposal insists on the importance of having rental housing properly registered and places a ban on group renting, a practice in which rooms in a single apartment are rented out as separate units.

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To prevent that, the draft regulation would forbid landlords from converting kitchens, bathrooms, balconies and similar places into bedrooms.

According to the regulation, each renter should have at least 5 square meters of space to live in, and an apartment housing more than 15 people should be registered with the police.

In a revision from a previous version, the regulation requires landlords and renters to go to local housing authorities to register the apartments being rented.

"Once a rental contract is signed, the two parties to the contract must register pertinent information with the appropriate government department within 30 days," said Liu Haisheng, director of the Shanghai Municipal Housing Support and Building Administration Bureau, at a press conference on Monday.

That will help establish a database of rental properties in Shanghai. That trove of information, in turn, will allow authorities to better monitor the city's rental prices and stay informed about the local market, Liu added.

Such registration requirements are often regarded as a way of preventing rental owners from evading rental taxes.

Many tenants, though, fear that landlords won't be the ones who shoulder the final burden.

"I am worried the cost of my rent will increase to offset the landlord's taxation," said Wu Yan, a tenant from Jiangsu province, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Pudong New Area in Shanghai.

But Pu Jianhua, head of the market supervision division with Shanghai Municipal Housing Support and Building Administration Bureau, noted that rental taxes usually account for only 5 percent of the rent charged to tenants.

"Of course, we will try to figure out a way to prevent tenants from shouldering the burden of rental taxes," Pu said. "That's why we ask all Shanghai residents to offer suggestions for our draft."

To protect tenants' interests, the draft said rent amounts should be set once a year.

According to Liu, more than 31 million square meters of gross floor space were rented in Shanghai in 2010.

Of that, 8 percent were occupied by local residents, 88 percent by Chinese from elsewhere and 4 percent by overseas residents.

Meanwhile, the average cost of renting in Shanghai increased by 2 percent from December to March, Pu said.

The Shanghai Municipal Housing Support and Building Administration Bureau has announced it will postpone a renovation of the city's existing residential buildings.

Its purpose in doing so is to give itself more time to take precautions aimed at preventing fires similar to the one that struck on Nov 15 and killed 58 people.

City authorities plan to spend one year looking for hidden dangers.