China's nail houses: the homeowners who refuse to make way – in pictures

A nail house sits in the middle of a road under construction in Nanning in April 2015. The owner of the house didn’t reach an agreement with the local authority about compensation for the demolition. Photograph: China Stringer Network/Reuters Photograph: China Stringer Network/Reuters

A nail house at a crossroads in Pinghe in China’s south-eastern Fujian province in November 2013. The local government has demolished most of the two-storey block, but one apartment owner has refused to move. Now only a tiny sliver of building remains. Photograph: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex

A lone resident holds out against luxury villas in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, in July 2013. Photograph: HAP/Quirky China News/REX

Zheng Meiju outside her nail house in Rui’an, Zhejiang province, in July 2013. She has been living in the partially demolished home for nearly a year, even though the water and electricity supply were cut. Photograph: China Stringer Network/Reuters

Two nail houses left isolated on a construction site in Yichang, a city in central China’s Hubei province, in April 2013. Power and water supplies to the houses were repeatedly cut off in anonymous night-time attacks. Photograph: Liu jiao/Imaginechina/AP

A worker looks across the rubble to 75-year-old Yao Baohua’s house in Changzhou, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, last year. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

Nail houses isolated by man-made ditches on a construction site in Yangji village in Guangzhou last year. The ditches were dug by relocated residents, forcing those remaining to move out. Photograph: Liu jiao/Imaginechina/AFP

Perhaps the most famous nail house is this one left stranded in the middle of a road in Wenling, in Zhejiang province. An elderly couple refused to sign an agreement to allow their house to be demolished. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters

A woman who tried to protect her house from being demolished is left distraught in Yangji village, Guangzhou. Photograph: Imaginechina/Corbis

Owner Zhao Xing collects water near his partially demolished nail house at a construction site in Kunming, Yunnan province, in 2010. Water and electricity supplies to his house had been cut. Photograph: Reuters

A partially demolished nail house on a construction site in Hefei, Anhui province, in 2010. Photograph: Jianan Yu/Reuters

A six-floor apartment block on a construction site in Shenzhen in 2007. Owner Choi Chu Cheung and his wife Zhang Lian-hao refused to accept the compensation offered by the developer. Photograph: Paul Yeung/Reuters

A house isolated on a mound on a construction site in Chongqing, south-west China, in 2007. Photograph: AP