Mr. Chen's family has lived for generations in a quiet and peaceful village in Yongtai County, Fuzhou City, Fujian Province. As ordinary farmers, they relied on hard work and frugality to accumulate some belongings bit by bit.
The hard work and sweat of several generations are condensed in this old house of the Chen family, where Mr. Chen grew up.
Time flies, time flies. Mr. Chen has already started a family, and his wife and children are surrounded by him, and he is happy. But as the family grew larger, the old house, which was not spacious, began to look crowded.
The elders in the family are getting older and more incapacitated, and need round-the-clock care and attention. Children are at a critical stage of their studies, and small rooms do not provide them with an adequate learning environment, affecting their physical and mental development.
Looking at his family living in this environment, Mr. Chen was full of helplessness and guilt. He watched the swaying steps of his ancestors and the children struggling in the cramped space, and Mr. Chen's heart was as uncomfortable as colic.
After countless nights of deliberation, he finally made up his mind to use all the possessions he had accumulated over the years to expand and renovate the old mansion and create a warm and comfortable new home for his family.
Making this decision was no easy one, and Mr. Chan knew how difficult it was. But he still mustered up the courage to sincerely explain his thoughts to his wife. Although the wife was a little worried about the need to spend all her belongings, she finally expressed her understanding and support when she saw that her husband was determined to do whatever it took to make his family's life better.
With the support and trust of his family, Mr. Chan began to plan this huge project. He consulted the former village cadres in detail to understand all the procedures and precautions required for handling; Although he had received clear guidance, on the eve of the start of construction, he still visited the relevant functional departments and worked tirelessly to obtain this "pass" for his family to reshape their home step by step.
Finally, thanks to Mr. Chen's unremitting efforts, all the necessary approval procedures were in place, and when he got the last paperwork, he finally had a smile of joy on his face.
Renovate your home and celebrate your new home
With sufficient preparation, Mr. Chen spent a lot of money to bring in a well-known design team to carefully plan every detail according to the Western style. Not only has a large number of expensive brand-name furniture been purchased from home and abroad, but the layout is also meticulous to create an elegant atmosphere.
The designers were inspired to breathe new life and vitality into the century-old mansion with modern ideas and techniques. Under their ingenuity, the magnificent Chen family mansion slowly rises from the ground, brick by brick embodies the infinite yearning for the ideal home.
In this way, in the expectation of the whole family, the renovated Chen family mansion was finally fully completed. At 635 square metres, the new house was spacious and generous, and when Mr. Chen led his family into the new home for the first time, everyone's eyes flashed with disbelief.
Mr. Chan was so happy that he decided to throw a housewarming banquet to share the joy with his family and friends. He traveled thousands of miles to buy colorful fireworks and set them off in the streets and alleys of the village, spreading the good news throughout the village.
What's even more touching is that Mr. Chen personally prepared a table of sumptuous and delicious delicacies, and sincerely invited his family and friends to come to this grand occasion.
When the new doors of the Chen family mansion were opened, guests were impressed by its extraordinary appearance. Someone exclaimed: "The Chen family is really a talent, and while he has a successful career, he is also generous and filial."
We all have to learn from him!" In the deafening sound of firecrackers, Mr. Chen was relieved to feel that the perfect moment of life was worth all the effort.
law enforcement inspections, facing demolition
However, joy is not sustained for long. Not long after Mr. Chen and his family were immersed in the joy of their new home, a shocking event suddenly happened.
When the township government routinely carried out village visits and inspections, the staff came to the Chen family's magnificent new homestead. When they saw this mansion with their own eyes, the expressions on their faces suddenly became confused and serious.
They quickly retrieved satellite images and compared them with the actual size of the new house, and found that there was a clear difference between the two - the size of the Chen family's new home far exceeded the standard range of the villagers' self-built houses.
The situation was urgent, and the staff immediately took action to inform Mr. Chan and asked him to show all the approval procedures and relevant documents. Although Mr. Chen truthfully presented all the documents and approvals he had handled, the other party bluntly told him the unacceptable bad news - his family's new home was identified as an illegal building, which had seriously encroached on valuable arable land resources, and he was about to face the fate of being forcibly demolished.
In the face of this thunderbolt news, Mr. Chen was never able to accept and believe it. He carefully checked and confirmed over and over again that all the documents and procedures in his hands had been approved through legal procedures and that there were no flaws or problems.
What made Mr. Chen feel even more helpless and aggrieved was that when he was about to start construction, the village committee did not raise any objections or obstructions, until everything had settled, but the bad news suddenly came.
Mr. Chen was not willing to be forcibly characterized as "illegal" in this way, so he invited the village cadres at the time to testify, hoping to restore the original situation. However, those law enforcement officers have always insisted on a resolute attitude: "According to the current laws and regulations, your current house area has seriously occupied cultivated land resources in violation of regulations, which indeed constitutes an illegal act, and we have to deal with it in accordance with the law."
In this way, the ideal home that Mr. Chen devoted all his efforts to building and invested in all his belongings suddenly became an "illegal building" when the whole family was the happiest and most joyful.
Faced with the sudden blow, Mr. Chen almost fell into despair, and the bright smiles of his family members also solidified into frightened and helpless expressions. All joy seems to be relentlessly crushed, replaced by boundless fear and anxiety.
Incident feedback and public opinion attention
Seeing that the dispute could not reach an agreement on the merits of the incident, Mr. Chen had no choice but to pin all his hopes on the power of public opinion. He worked tirelessly to report the situation to the major media outlets, and finally attracted the attention of a local newspaper.
Soon, a story with a shocking headline spread in the local community – "A 3 million carefully built house has been ruled illegal construction". For a time, this incident, which seemed quite ridiculous to outsiders, immediately caused an uproar among the people and became a hot topic.
"It is obviously unfair that Mr. Chen has spent so much effort and money just to give his family a more decent life, but now he is facing the fate of being forced to be demolished because of some vague legal provisions.
An enthusiastic netizen posted such a comment on the Internet, which quickly caused widespread resonance.
With the continuous fermentation of public opinion, the incident soon rose to the focus of national attention.
Some people believe that the government's handling of this matter is too harsh and lacks human care. As for Mr. Chen's well-intentioned and innocuous "fault", it is reasonable to open up the net according to the circumstances, instead of blindly insisting on the law to the end.
However, there are also those who hold opposing views who believe that the law is the law, and that the law enforcement departments have no choice, and that they must strictly enforce it to the end, and there must be no slackness or omission, otherwise it will only aggravate the people's anomie towards the rule of law.
The two sides insisted on their own words, and the disputes were inseparable, and there was an uproar in the field of public opinion. In the face of strong public pressure, the government departments also had to make a formal response: they re-retrieved the construction approval materials of the Chen family's house, as well as the on-site survey records of the surveying and mapping institute at that time, and found that there were indeed serious violations.
"Satellite imagery and on-site measurements clearly show that the area of the Chen family's new home far exceeds the original area, and it has seriously encroached on cultivated land resources. "This is a violation of national laws and regulations, and we have no choice but to implement and deal with it in accordance with the law."
In this way, the contradiction between the government and Mr. Chen was further exacerbated and escalated in the field of public opinion. The law enforcers and the parties insisted on their own words, and neither side could convince the other, and there was a stalemate.
Such an outcome was, of course, a disappointment to a group of people who were expecting a satisfactory solution to the problem.