China’s ‘rotten-tail buildings’: homebuyers in limbo for years with no home due to dodgy developers and red tape
- A survey conducted this year found over 45 per cent of homebuyers in mainland China encounter unfinished building problems
- Unfinished or ‘rotten-tail buildings’, as they are known in China, usually have no electricity, no running water, lifts that do not work and no sewage system
At 9pm 67-year-old Li Zhu’e was hobbling up the stairs to her 13th-floor flat after using the public toilet in her compound’s yard. Since the stairwell has no lighting, she held an electric torch in her right hand illuminating the steps as she climbed.
Li suffered a serious car accident in 2019. After two surgeries, a large piece of flesh was removed from her right leg, and she still has 12 metal pins in her lower back, limiting her ability to walk.
The place Li calls “home” is an unfinished building, colloquially known as a “rotten-tail building” in China, with no electricity, no running water, a lift that does not work and no sewage system.
To light her apartment, Li’s daughter-in-law bought a solar light, which they charge on her balcony during the day; to cook they use a small gas stove, and to drink, they cart bottles of water up from downstairs two to three times a day.
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There are now more than 300 families living in four out of 13 rotten-tail buildings in Li’s compound in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi Province in central China.
“It’s cold sleeping here at night and we don’t take off our clothes [when we go to bed],” Li told the South China Morning Post. “We don’t have many requests now; if the government can help us with getting electricity and running water, we will be happy.”
Most of the homeowners bought the flats in 2013. The construction was halted in 2016 when the developer experienced financial difficulties. In 2018 they were informed that the developer had declared bankruptcy. The project had remained unfinished for most of the last decade.
Many of the more than 1,200 homeowners have tried countless times to get help from authorities, and Li Ke, 33, is one of them.
Li Ke spent about 500,000 yuan (US$75,600) on a 94-square-metre apartment which was supposed to be his home after his wedding. However, his daughter is now six years old.
“We go to the district government several times a month to petition,” Li said, “but we haven’t gotten a clear response yet.”
At present, the compound is still under construction organised by the government, the court, the bankruptcy reorganisation administrator and the developer, however, the owners still cannot breathe a sigh of relief.
“We finally decided to move in because the administrator told us in February that ‘when the final court decision comes out, these flats may not belong to you,’” Li said.
According to Li, the entrance has been blocked three times without prior notice to prevent people from entering, and the homeowners also pushed the fence down three times.
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“They only informed us later that it was for construction purposes, but we don’t believe them,” Li said.
Some homeowners moved in believing this is the only way they can defend their property ownership, while many others did it because they could no longer afford to rent a place and pay a mortgage on a separate home.
Qu Pingrong, 55, a chef, was out of work for three months in 2021 as the restaurant industry suffered due to the pandemic. His wife was jobless for five months.
“Our landlord raised our rent by almost 24 per cent to 2,100 yuan (US$317) a month, which we couldn’t afford as we still have a 200,000 yuan (US$30,240) outstanding debt,” Qu said.
Qu chose to buy a flat here because through the window he could see the village where he grew up and his parents still live there. However, what was once a dream has become a nightmare.
According to a Tencent survey conducted this year, over 45 per cent of homebuyers in mainland China encounter unfinished building problems. Data collected by The Paper in 2020 shows unfinished buildings nationwide can take on average a further 2.1 years to be completed after the original promised delivery date, with the longest on record taking an extra 22 years.
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Wang Yuchen, a real estate lawyer based in Beijing, said that the number of unfinished buildings may increase in the short term due to the epidemic and the downturn in China’s volatile real estate market.
While moving into unfinished buildings can help protect homeowners’ rights in the event that a court rules to seize the property, Wang explained that “determining who is to blame can be difficult when an accident, such as a fire, happens.”
However, “regardless of what caused the accident, the developer should be held indirectly liable,” Wang added.
While Li, the grandma, was taking a break on the 10th floor of her building in Xian, her phone rang, and its ringtone’s lyrics were aptly surreal: “We live a good life, prosperous and booming; we have caught up with a good time and have joyful years.”
Due to the poor signal strength in the building, the phone quickly cut out before she could answer it.
