Chinese people have been waiting for the Property Law for a long time. While the preparation for drafting a Property Law started as early as 1993, the draft law did not go through its first reading in China's legislature until 2002 as part of the Civil Code. Since then it has been deliberated on by NPC Standing Committee an unprecedented seven times. During those deliberations the full text of the draft law was also released to the general public to solicit its opinion.

The marathon legislative process for China's Property Law was strongly influenced by Gong Xiantian, a professor of jurisprudence at Peking University Law School.

One month after the Standing Committee of the NPC published the full text of the draft Property Law in July 2005, Gong posted a letter online entitled, "A Law That Goes Against the Principles of Socialism and the Constitution." In this letter, he said that although the law set out to protect ordinary people's property rights, its effect would in fact be to protect the rights of an extremely rich minority. "It equally protects a rich guy's limousine and a beggar's rod," he said sarcastically in the letter. He also indicated that the embezzlement of state-owned assets during the reform of state-owned enterprises could worsen should the draft be made into law without major revisions.

Gong's letter sparked enthusiastic debate about the nature of a potential property law across China, which helped to influence the final draft. The NPC Standing Committee in charge of creating the law collected more than 10,000 suggestions from the public and hosted over 100 workshops and seminars on the drafting of the Property Law since the draft was publicized in July 2005.

Explaining the Property Law to the NPC session, Wang Zhaoguo reiterated that the state would give equal protection to properties under different types of ownership, whether they belong to the state, collectives or individuals. "Individuals' legal properties are protected by law and must not be invaded, ransacked or destructed by any entity or individual," says the Property Law. Wang also said to avoid the drain of state assets during the reform of state-owned enterprises, an issue arousing enormous public concern in recent years, the law stipulates that those who cause the loss of state-owned assets due to mismanagement and abuse of power should bear legal liability.

The Chinese housing market has been booming since the early 1990s, and recent years have seen a surge of lawsuits resulting from conflicts between property owners and property management companies. Because of this, in the process of revising, the draft law was altered to incorporate provisions defining the rights of property owners in common areas, such as lifts, grassland, and garages.

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