Curtains for the nail house? New plan targets China's most defiant homeowners

New law in Shenzhen means buildings can be developed with 95%, rather than 100%, support from residents - promoting concern over erosion of rights

They stand as eyesores to most passers by and potential public health risks to authorities, decaying buildings wrapped in tangles of exposed wire, studded with protruding leaky plastic pipes, vegetation billowing from cracks and terraces where particulates from polluted air have accumulated over time.

With skyscrapers and ultramodern developments on every side, some of these nail houses" are also sitting on land worth millions of dollars in Shenzhen's inferno of a property market, where new-unit and second-hand home prices rival London.