GUANGZHOU: The municipal land and housing authority of Guangzhou is investigating claims that numerous ineligible underage applicants somehow got onto the candidate's list for the city's fixed-price apartments.

"Our administration is verifying whether the claim is true or not; and if it is true, they will continue to look into why such things could have happened," an official with the city's land and housing administration, who identified himself as Xu, told China Daily.

The issue came to light after the list was made public and a citizen noticed that, according to their identification numbers, at least 17 of the applicants were too young to qualify for housing assistance.