@Calach - popular in what way?
I searched "China rental agreements" and similar and keep coming up (well, three times) with stories of landlord suddenly announcing they were selling. It happens even to Chinese tenants.
There was a slightly similar case in Shenzhen recently. the foreigner took the landlord to court,
and won.
What sort of ploy?
I'm guessing. But, like, "oh, so you won't agree to a rent increase, okay, that's fine, by the way, I'll be selling the apartment and you have to leave anyway..."
As a means to what? Please elaborate...
Getting a tenant who pays more.
Unless the buyer is this dude you mentioned, no one has inspected the property as a property, right? And Chinese generally prefer to buy new, not pre-lived in. Or is someone buying the location, not the apartment? Is the sale happening now? Why would she remove rent paying tenants so she could leave it empty while people inspect?
Perhaps she does have a buyer lined up. I don't know. but hard ball her on the legal penalty as opposed to the contracted penalty (not as an attempt to get money, but as a delaying tactic. Chinese do it all the time to exhaust negotiators. You can too.)
(Sorry for the slow reply--my internet goes splut every wednesday, don't know why.)