Cops quash home buyers' protests

• Source: Global Times
• [08:48 August 31 2010]
• Comments

Some 200 home buyers gather at the Jiuting Township sales office in Songjiang district on Sunday morning, before continuing with protests on Husong Road. Photo: Global Times

By Chen Xiaoru

Local police quashed protests by some two hundred home buyers in Songjiang district on Sunday morning, who claim that their property developer has delayed them from moving in by at least a year without paying them due compensation.

Carrying signs that read "Let us move in right now," the Jiuting Township homebuyers blocked Husong Road, a major street that links the southern suburb to downtown for an hour starting at 10 am, following a meeting gone sour with property developer Neo-China Group Limited earlier that morning.

According to Wang Fan, who made a down payment on an apartment at the Jiuting Township complex last year, some 1,500 families in the same situation as him have been prohibited from moving in by the developer since last year, when the homes were supposed to be ready for residents.

"The contract makes it clear that if the property developer has to delay our move-in, they are supposed to compensate us one-ten thousandth of the price of our home per day, but we haven't received any of this money," he told the Global Times Monday.

Wang added that the developer told some residents that while the homes have been completed, the delay has been caused by some final paperwork that has not yet been completed.

Neo-China Monday declined to comment on the situation when reached by the Global Times.