Beijing, China, October 26 (Reporter Guo Jiali) "Construction started on the first floor, and I can feel a slight shake when I live on the 13th floor." Recently, Ms. Yang from Nanchong, Sichuan reported to Yangguang. com that it cost more than 500,000 yuan to buy this house, another 120,000 yuan to decorate it, and all her savings were spent. I didn’t know that just after living for a year and a half, cracks appeared in the house.
According to an announcement provided by Ms. Yang, Nanchong Fuli Commercial Management Center and Nanchong Jiahong Property Management Co., Ltd. carried out construction on the first floor of Building No.4 without the consent of the owners. Ms. Yang said that the construction party plans to divide the 5.9-meter-high first floor into two floors, and drill holes with rhinestones, which passed through the load-bearing columns nearly 80 cm thick, causing some houses to crack, posing a safety hazard to the residents of the building.
Mr. Tang, a resident of the building, said that cracks appeared in the house, which may be no problem at ordinary times, but Sichuan is an earthquake-prone area, and once an earthquake occurs, there will be security risks. The house that ordinary people have worked hard to save money to buy cannot be lived in fear.
Since the beginning of this year, four people have been detained from the "privately demolished load-bearing wall incident" in Limin Academy Community of Harbin, and then they went to Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province to violently decorate "Open 42 Suites" … … The problem of load-bearing wall being demolished is frequently searched.
According to the incomplete statistics of the media, among the 49 building collapse accidents in China since 2012, 25 were caused by the unauthorized demolition and modification of the main structure of the existing building or adding stories, changing the use function and increasing the load, accounting for more than 50%.
In order to eradicate this chaos, on June 9 this year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the Safety Management of Interior Decoration of Urban Houses, clarifying the responsibilities of all parties and relevant departments involved in decoration activities, including design units, decoration enterprises, property service enterprises and local governments.
The load-bearing column is perforated by a diamond (photo courtesy of the interviewee from Yangguang. com)
Why can’t we tear down the load-bearing wall privately?
"When we took the new house, there were no such cracks at all. Since the load-bearing pillars were laid on the first floor, the house cracked." Ms. Yang said.
She said that the merchants on the first floor put the load-bearing columns through all sides, with a diameter of 30 mm, ten holes on each side of the central column and four holes on each side of the side load-bearing column.
The live pictures and videos provided by Ms. Yang show that the steel bars in the load-bearing columns on the first floor have been drilled, and the upper and lower rows have been drilled through by rhinestones. Cracks have appeared in the kitchen and living room walls of houses on the sixth floor, and cracks have also appeared in the bedroom walls of households on the ninth floor.
Cracks appear in the wall of the household restaurant (Photo courtesy of the interviewee from Yangguang. com)
An announcement signed by Ms. Yang to the reporter as "Nanchong Fuli Commercial Management Center" showed that Nanchong Fuli Commercial Management Center indicated that it had entrusted Nanchong Hengrui Testing Co., Ltd. for technical appraisal, and the appraisal conclusion of Nanchong Hengrui Testing Co., Ltd. was that the main structure of Building 4 was in a safe state.
According to the above announcement, it is suggested to repair the holes in the concrete columns on the first floor immediately, and it is indicated that the Chongqing Design Institute, the original design unit of Building 4, has been entrusted to design the reinforcement scheme, and the drawing review organization has been invited to examine and approve the reinforcement drawings. At the same time, Fuli Center entrusted Sichuan Caiyuan Building Reinforcement Engineering Co., Ltd., which has the professional contracting qualification of special engineering (structural reinforcement), to prepare the concrete beams and columns on the first floor to be restored to their original state.
However, the community owners do not agree with the announcement. Ms. Yang told the reporter that because the owner did not trust the appraisal entrusted by her, she wanted to apply for the appraisal of the provincial appraisal institute. At present, 51 owners have jointly signed a request for appraisal, but the construction party has been reluctant to sign. At present, the Jialing District Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Bureau said that it would handle the case on November 7.
"If you break a bone, you can’t stand up." Xue Minghui, deputy dean of the School of Architecture of Harbin Institute of Technology, said that the load-bearing walls and columns are the skeleton of the building. After being damaged, it will cause hidden dangers to the building, and the building will be directly damaged. Its importance is self-evident. It must be made clear that the private demolition of the load-bearing walls is not a moral issue, but a legal issue.
According to Article 15 of Chapter II of the Regulations on Quality Management of Construction Projects: "The construction unit shall entrust the original design unit or a design unit with corresponding qualification grade to put forward the design scheme before the construction of the decoration project involving the change of the main building body and load-bearing structure. Without the design scheme, the construction shall not be carried out. During the renovation process, building users are not allowed to change the main body and load-bearing structure of the building without authorization. "
In addition, the first paragraph of Article 5 in Chapter II of the Administrative Measures for Interior Decoration of Residential Buildings stipulates: "The following acts are prohibited in the interior decoration of residential buildings: changing the main body and load-bearing structure of the building without the original design unit or a design unit with corresponding qualification grade."
"Unauthorized transformation may constitute infringement and bear civil liability for compensation. Because the bearing wall is dismantled privately, the whole building is in a dangerous state, which endangers public safety and is suspected of bearing criminal responsibility, which constitutes a crime of endangering public safety by dangerous means. " Lawyer Li Baolian of Beijing Jingshi Law Firm said.
On October 22, Ms. Yang told reporters that the construction party had stopped work on August 29 due to the opposition of the owners. On September 1st, Jialing District Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Bureau delivered a rectification notice to Fuli Center.
Why is there a constant controversy over privately demolishing the load-bearing wall?
Not only Ms. Yang, but also Mr. Chen from xinluo district, Longyan City, Fujian Province, is facing the problem of "privately demolishing the bearing wall" in the same building.
On October 20, Mr. Chen told the reporter of Yangguang. com that the owner of the 25th floor of the residential area owned two houses on this floor. In order to connect the two houses into one, during the renovation, the owner removed the four load-bearing walls between the living room of one house and the kitchen of another house. "The load-bearing walls that have been demolished here are basically determined. As the householder refused to let in, whether the load-bearing wall at the passage between the two units was damaged has not yet been determined. "
Demolished wall (photo courtesy of interviewee from Yangguang. com)
Xue Minghui, after checking the construction drawings provided by Mr. Chen, said that the four demolished places are wall battlements, which are not a big problem at ordinary times, but may be dangerous under special circumstances. Shear walls, also known as wind-resistant walls and earthquake-resistant walls, are located in the passage between the two houses, which have the function of resisting typhoons. Destroying the shear walls will affect the bearing capacity of the building and cannot be removed at will.
Floor plan of the owner’s two houses on the 25th floor (Photo courtesy of the interviewee sent by Yangguang. com)
"Why did the original design unit or the design unit with the corresponding qualification grade not issue a professional design plan, and the property was allowed to start construction?" Many owners asked about the residential property in the WeChat group.
In response to the owner’s query, the property said in the owner group of Building No.10 that the behavior had been discovered during the inspection, and issued a rectification notice on August 30 and informed the Urban Management Bureau, and said that the Longmen Law Enforcement Brigade of the Urban Management Bureau had been to the site for disposal.
During this period, many residents in Building 10 complained through "e Longyan". On September 13, Longyan City Administration Bureau began to reply to the complaints one after another: "The Longmen Law Enforcement Brigade of Longyan City Administration Bureau intervened in the investigation on September 6 before receiving the complaints. Our team’s law enforcement officers asked the owner to rectify and restore the demolished wall, and the owner began rectification on September 10. "
However, the owners are not satisfied with the reply. "Let the business owners recover on their own, and can they meet the requirements of bearing capacity after recovery? Why not publish a professional appraisal and repair plan? " Mr. Chen said.
In the interview, the reporter found that whether the appraisal is authoritative and the later professional rectification plan is issued, and whether reasonable compensation is implemented is the focus of controversy.
Lawyer Wang Xinyue of Beijing Haotian Law Firm said that the reason for the dispute is that even if the owner receives the rectification notice or administrative punishment decision from the law enforcement unit, there may still be problems in actual performance. For example, the owner is not sure whether the rectification and repair plan is standardized or whether the rectification and repair plan meets the bearing capacity requirements.
She believes that law enforcement units should actively perform their duties, eliminate the harmful consequences and continue to follow up after issuing the Notice of Order (Time Limit) Correction, and combine various means such as investigation, fine and transfer to the public security department. If necessary, a third-party rectification plan can be introduced, and the rectification costs will be borne by the violator. At the same time, strengthen the intensity of administrative law enforcement and improve the quality of administrative law enforcement.
Why are private demolition of load-bearing walls repeatedly prohibited?
Since the beginning of this year, many "privately demolished load-bearing walls" incidents have been on the hot search.
At the end of April, in a 31-storey residential building in Limin Academy Community, Songbei District, Harbin, tenants smashed the load-bearing wall privately during renovation, resulting in cracks in the whole building. In the evening, more than 200 households were evacuated. According to CCTV news, on May 9, the public security organs took criminal compulsory measures against four responsible persons according to law.
Just in the past month, at the end of May, some people reported that on the second floor of an apartment building in Yuegong Mansion, Wuyue Square, Sihui City, Guangdong Province, Yao, the owner of 42 apartments on the whole floor, demolished the partition wall without obtaining a construction permit, and illegally constructed about 700 square meters. On June 6th, the official WeChat of the Propaganda Department of Sihui Municipal Committee, WeChat official account, released a description of the "Sihui Release", ordering it to stop construction immediately and make corrections within a time limit.
Xue Minghui said that load-bearing walls generally refer to walls used to bear vertical loads in brick-concrete structures. At present, new buildings are rare, mainly some multi-storey houses built in the last century. Multi-storey public buildings are generally frame structures, which are supported by columns. High-rise residential buildings are generally shear walls, which are supported by vertical and horizontal loads. Some people understand shear walls as load-bearing walls.
Why is it that private demolition of load-bearing walls is repeatedly prohibited? He believes that from a dialectical point of view, first, the functions of existing buildings can not meet the needs of social development, and the space can not meet the requirements of new commerce and residence, which needs to be expanded, but it is limited by the wall. Second, due to the lack of popular science in architecture, many people don’t know which walls can be moved, which can never be moved, and which can be partially changed, such as opening doors and windows, which helps those who don’t know the building structure to avoid falling into the predicament of huge compensation and disputes. Third, the inadequate supervision of the property and related departments on the decoration process is also one of the reasons for this phenomenon.
"Once there is a problem with the load-bearing wall, the property will also bear the responsibility, which is a dereliction of duty." A property manager said that before the renovation, the decoration masters all had house design drawings, and they knew which were load-bearing walls. "If it is not intentionally demolished, the decoration master will not move the load-bearing wall."
In Xue Minghui’s view, it is necessary to raise residents’ awareness of the rule of law for such problems. "Let everyone know that this is not a moral issue, but a legal issue."
How should the load-bearing wall "bear the load"?
"Not all load-bearing walls can be dismantled." In Xue Minghui’s view, many buildings can be demolished by structural reinforcement, but this requires special institutions to identify, design and construct. In addition, because a certain safety factor is reserved in the structural design of buildings, sometimes accidents will not occur when some load-bearing walls are removed. For example, the load-bearing wall on the top floor of the building does not have much load on it, and even if it is removed, the problem is not great.
He said that it is unclear that the most unfavorable conditions, such as earthquake resistance, too many people in the room and uneven load, will be taken into account when designing the building structure. However, this has also caused many people a misunderstanding that some load-bearing walls can be removed, or at least some parts can be removed.
In order to curb the illegal acts of interior decoration, on June 9 this year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the Safety Management of Interior Decoration of Urban Houses (hereinafter referred to as the Notice), which further clarified the responsibilities of all parties and relevant departments involved in the decoration activities, including design units, decoration enterprises, property service enterprises and local governments.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the Safety Management of Interior Decoration of Urban Houses.
After the promulgation of the Notice, some cities have taken action. For example, the comprehensive administrative law enforcement team of Luodian Town, Baoshan District, Shanghai has set up a special working group to lead the new owners to identify the load-bearing structure of the house on the spot in each newly delivered community, and to answer questions on the spot by explaining the case and explaining it in a simple way, so as to turn "compulsory afterwards" into "prevention and control beforehand".
"This is not a joke, we can’t afford this responsibility." A property manager said that no matter from which point of view, this is harmful to others. If there is a crack in the internal structure of the wall, the residents of the whole building are in danger.
The above-mentioned managers said that before the renovation, they would tell the owners never to move the load-bearing wall. During the renovation, the property personnel should also check it out. If there are renovation tenants who can’t open the door due to frequent construction, they should pay attention. If the owner is found to have dismantled the load-bearing wall privately and refuses to stop it, he will be told to stop the decoration immediately and force the water and electricity to be cut off. In addition, the property will also inform the doorpost and refuse the decoration master to enter the community. After the load-bearing wall is restored, the construction can continue.
Li Baolian said that property service enterprises should give full play to the role of "whistleblower" and "night watchman", encrypt the frequency of inspections in their daily work, dissuade and stop violations immediately when they are found, and promptly report to relevant departments for legal determination and handling. Government supervision departments should strengthen the supervision of decoration enterprises, and strictly investigate unqualified, borrowed or exceeded qualifications to undertake decoration projects.
She said that once it is found that someone has dismantled the load-bearing wall privately, the owner can bring a lawsuit to the people’s court where the house is located according to the Civil Code, requesting the actor to stop the infringement, remove the obstruction, eliminate the danger, restore the original state and compensate for the losses.
