A man has been placed in detention and fined in southern China for spreading rumours that inflated the amount of money given in compensation to the owner of a “nail house”, state media reported.
The owner of a flat in Shenzhen had refused to move to make way for a high-speed rail and development project for a decade, leaving the block of flats still standing as other buildings were cleared to construct shopping malls and new housing.
The owner eventually agreed to unspecified compensation, the report said, and the block of flats in the Longhua district was pulled down earlier this month.
The man spreading the rumour was placed in detention for 10 days after he falsely claimed that the compensation deal was worth 130 million yuan (US$19.6 million), the state-run news agency Xinhua reported. The man, who was not named, was also fined 500 yuan.
Notorious Shanghai ‘nail house’ in middle of road to be demolished
Chinese media regularly report on “nail houses”, with some residents refusing to move from their homes for years to make way for development while negotiating compensation deals.
The high-speed rail line started operating in Longhua in 2011 and the owner of the building was offered 20 million yuan by a property developer, but was rejected, according to local media reports.
Property prices in the area have continued to rise and last year a plot of land further away from the area’s rail station was auctioned for 14 billion yuan.
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