Reading guide With the improvement of people's living standards, people pay more and more attention to the lighting right of the room. The contradiction caused by the lighting problem is mainly due to some developers' construction in order to obtain greater profits in the limited space, knowing that it will infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of neighboring others. Recently, the Hebei Chengde intermediate people's Court concluded a case of lighting right dispute in the second instance. Because the new building of the development company blocked the lighting of a certain house, the two parties signed a contract through negotiation. The development company replaced an existing house with a new one, but the contract could not be fulfilled because the development company sold the replaced house to others, and Yu sued the development company to the court. Chengde intermediate people's court, based on social development and the actual lighting impact of the case, raised the compensation standard as appropriate, and ordered the development company to pay a compensation of 76000 yuan. After the judgment, 22 other disputes were settled according to this standard. It is difficult to realize the replacement when the daylighting is blocked In November 2016, Chengde Weichang County real estate development company built the second phase project of the community in the southeast of a certain house. One of the buildings under construction will block the daylighting of a certain house for some time. In order to safeguard his legitimate rights and interests, Yu has communicated with the development company for many times. In order to solve the shading problem, the development company finally signed a "replacement contract" with Yu. The contract stipulates that Yu will replace a building in unit 6 of Building 1 where he lives with the East household on the 7th floor of unit 3 of building 7 developed by the development company. If there is an area difference, the difference will be made up at the market price. The two parties also agreed that if the contract was not performed due to the development company, the company would compensate a certain 300000 yuan. After the contract was signed, the development company carried out the development and construction on schedule. Yu went to the development company many times and asked to perform the contract. At this time, the development company has outsourced the overall sales of the building to a third-party company. The third-party sales company said that it was unaware of the replacement contract signed by the development company and Yu, and had sold the agreed East household on the 7th floor, unit 3, building 7 to others, resulting in the failure to perform the replacement contract. After communication between the two parties, the development company and Yu signed a supplementary agreement in November 2021 to adjust the original replacement building number to the east house on the 7th floor, unit 3, building 8. Before the signing of the supplementary agreement, because the East household on the 7th floor of unit 3 of Building 8 was sealed up by the court and could not be actually delivered, the supplementary agreement also agreed that the development company should apply to the court for lifting the seal on the East household on the 7th floor of unit 3 of Building 8 within 30 days and go through the filing procedures with a certain person. If it cannot be handled within 30 days, the supplementary agreement is invalid. However, after the 30 days agreed by both parties, the development company still failed to solve the problem of building seizure, resulting in the failure to perform the supplementary agreement. Yu, unable to bear it, sued to the court and asked the development company to pay the agreed compensation of 300000 yuan. After hearing the case, the court of first instance held that Yu's claim for compensation of 300000 yuan for the development company's failure to perform the contract was in line with the agreement of the replacement contract signed by both parties, and did not violate the legal provisions. It ruled that the development company should pay 300000 yuan as liquidated damages within 10 days after the judgment came into effect. Determine the amount of compensation to resolve a series of disputes The real estate development company admitted that the building it built did block the daylighting of Yu's house, but compared with the local house price of about 6500 yuan per square meter, the compensation of 300000 yuan was obviously too high, so it appealed to the Chengde intermediate people's court and requested to change the judgment according to law to reduce the amount of liquidated damages claimed by Yu. The development company believes that although the two sides signed the "replacement contract", the signing basis is that the building the company plans to build has a lighting impact on the appellee's building for some time, so the two sides agreed to solve the shading problem in the form of exchanging houses. Because the development company outsourced the whole building sales to a third-party company, the replacement building was sold and the contract could not be performed, which was not caused by its intentional breach of contract. The development company believes that the highest standard stipulated in the "opinions of Hebei Higher People's Court on hearing lighting dispute cases (Trial)" issued in 1993 should be referred to, and the loss of Yu should be compensated at 200 yuan per square meter. The judge in charge of the case comprehensively analyzed that the current value of a house is about 490000 yuan, and the liquidated damages of 300000 yuan is equivalent to more than half of the house price, which is obviously too high. If the original judgment is upheld and the other 22 households whose daylighting is affected take this as a reference, it is also difficult for a development company in an economically underdeveloped area to fulfill it. However, if the compensation is 200 yuan per square meter, Yu can only get 15600 yuan, which is too different from Yu's claim for compensation for losses, and is also contrary to today's real living standard. The facts of this case are clear, and the two sides have great disputes on compensation. According to the compensation standard for liquidated damages stipulated in the civil code, the liquidated damages are generally set at 20% to 30%. If the liquidated damages are too high or too low, the court can reduce or increase them at its discretion according to law. After investigation, the guiding opinions that can be inquired about the compensation for lighting rights disputes are generally issued earlier and out of touch with the times. It can be said that today, the compensation of lighting rights disputes is still a legal blind spot. How to properly resolve such contradictions according to law challenges the judicial ability and responsibility of judges. In handling the case, the judge learned that there were 23 households affected by daylighting. Like Yu, most of them adopted litigation to protect their rights. Yu's dispute has entered the second instance procedure, and the other 22 cases are still being heard by the court of first instance. If we can properly solve a certain case, it will play a good role of demonstration and guidance, and let the other 22 cases take this as a reference to resolve smoothly. The area of 23 houses affected by daylighting is between 70 square meters and 90 square meters. The collegiate bench held that the compensation standard should not be one size fits all, and it is more scientific to use the shading area to calculate the actual loss of each household. The collegial panel, in combination with economic and social development, the improvement of living standards and other factors, decided to increase the maximum compensation standard of Hebei Province in 1993 by another five times to 1000 yuan per square meter. Yu said that if he was compensated at the standard of 1000 yuan per square meter, he could get 76000 yuan. Although there was a lot of difference from the expected compensation, after the judge patiently explained the law and reason, he was convinced and fully accepted the compensation. The development company also recognized the result of this judgment and fulfilled the payment obligation on schedule. Other 22 households affected by daylighting saw the result of the second instance judgment and stopped waiting. They believed that the compensation of 1000 yuan per square meter was compatible with the local living standard and could make up for their actual losses caused by shading. Therefore, they successfully accepted the mediation of the court. All 22 cases were closed, and the people's peace was truly achieved. Referee analysis Realizing the judicial value of the legal compensation of the lighting right The Chengde intermediate people's court held that although the two parties in this case signed the replacement contract and the supplementary agreement, according to the statements of the two parties and the identification of valid evidence, the essence of the dispute in this case is how the real estate development company compensates for a person affected by daylighting. According to Article 585 of the Civil Code: "The parties may agree that when one party breaches the contract, it shall pay a certain amount of liquidated damages to the other party according to the circumstances of the breach, and may also agree on the calculation method of the amount of compensation for the losses caused by the breach. If the agreed liquidated damages are lower than the losses caused, the people's court or arbitration institution may increase them at the request of the parties; if the agreed liquidated damages are too higher than the losses caused, the people's court or arbitration institution may, at the request of the parties It is required to be appropriately reduced. " Article 5.0.2 of the national standard code for planning and design of urban residential areas issued by the Ministry of construction on March 11, 2002 stipulates that the residential spacing should be determined on the basis of meeting the sunshine requirements, taking into account the requirements of lighting, ventilation, fire protection, earthquake prevention, pipeline laying, visual health and so on; The residential sunshine standard shall comply with the provisions of table 5.0.2-1, and for specific circumstances, the following provisions shall also be met: (1) the residential buildings for the elderly shall not be less than the standard of 2 hours of sunshine on the winter solstice; (2) Adding any facilities outside the original design building should not reduce the original sunshine standard of adjacent houses; (3) The sunshine standard of newly-built houses in the old area reconstruction project can be reduced as appropriate, but it should not be lower than the standard of 1 hour sunshine on a cold day. According to Article 293 of the civil code, "the construction of buildings shall not violate the relevant national engineering construction standards, and shall not hinder the ventilation, lighting and sunshine of adjacent buildings." In addition, there is no explicit provision on the issue of lighting damage compensation in China at the legal level, and there is no corresponding judicial interpretation. At present, the main standards that can be used to judge whether the lighting right has been violated in life are the code for planning and design of urban residential areas. However, there is no provision on daylighting compensation in this specification. Due to the uncertainty of the basis for measuring whether the lighting right has been infringed, there are different judgment standards for damage compensation in judicial practice, and in most cases, there are relatively few recognition and compensation, so it is difficult to realize the judicial value of lighting right compensation according to law. Referring to the standards of lighting damage compensation determined by provinces and cities, it is difficult to determine the lighting loss due to the unbalanced economic development between regions, the difference between the north and the south climate, the different sunshine time in various regions and other factors. For example, the Interim Provisions of the Beijing Municipal Government on the spacing of living buildings in Beijing (issued in 1988) stipulates that if the sunshine time is less than 1 hour on the winter solstice, each household will be compensated 800 yuan to 2000 yuan at a time according to the sheltered condition of its bedroom. However, after the revision in 2007, the corresponding provisions are mainly made for the spacing and height of adjacent low and multi-storey residential buildings, while there are no corresponding provisions on the specific amount of compensation. Another example is the Jiangsu provincial government's technical regulations on urban planning and management in Jiangsu Province (sunshine regulations) (revised in 2018), which specifically stipulates the lower limit of sunshine spacing coefficient and calculation formula for residential buildings, but also has no regulations on shading compensation. However, other provinces and cities have not stipulated the specific amount of compensation in terms of urban planning. In addition, Article 5 of the opinions of the higher people's Court of Hebei Province on the trial of lighting disputes (Trial) issued in 1993 stipulates that buildings designed according to the overall urban planning should be allowed to be built if they affect the lighting of adjacent parties. However, the construction party shall provide heating, lighting, housing replacement or economic compensation for the other party. For economic compensation, the compensation standard is calculated based on the living area of the affected buildings, with a one-time compensation of 100 to 200 yuan per square meter, but the opinion has been issued for more than 20 years. In this case, according to the measurement, the newly-built building of the development company caused 2 hours and 18 minutes of shading to a residential house on a cold day, which really caused the influence of daylighting, so both parties should perform according to the signed agreement. As a residential building was purchased in 2012, the current price of the building is about 490000 yuan. According to the social development, the current per capita consumption level and price rise factors, combined with the actual lighting impact of the case, the judge decided that 1000 yuan per square meter is more appropriate. According to the effective judgment of the court of second instance, the court of first instance mediated the other 22 cases that had been in the proceedings according to the standards determined in the case, and all of them were settled through mediation, which timely safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of the parties affected by daylighting. Expert comments Judicial responsibility makes people's hearts full of sunshine Liulianhua, Professor of Hebei political and legal MANAGEMENT CADRE COLLEGE In recent years, with the economic and social development and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the people's needs for living conditions and housing quality