Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said that a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-proposed bill that would require private landlords to disclose rental transactions could infringe on privacy and impact the housing market.
After lawmakers on the Internal Administration Committee yesterday approved the amendments to the Rental Housing Market Development and Regulation Act (租賃住宅市場發展及管理條例) without endorsing the bill’s content, leaving the matter for cross-caucus negotiations, Liu said that the proposed changes would cause a shock to the housing market should they be implemented.
The law currently exempts private property owners from disclosure rules on transactions, resulting in a loophole that has enabled a housing black market to thrive, KMT legislators said as they submitted the bill to the committee.
Photo: CNA
The KMT proposal would mandate landlords to disclose pricing information on transactions or face a fine of NT$10,000 to NT$50,000, while rewarding whistle-blowers with a part of the penalty.
Each local government would be responsible for managing a regional housing transaction registry, the bill said.
The bill’s sponsor KMT Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) said the amendments are necessary to counter exploitative behavior by property management companies who have come to dominate the social housing market.
Liu said that the government two years ago floated a similar proposal with the nation’s 22 cities and counties, but ultimately rejected it as unsuitable.
The Ministry of the Interior’s proposal would be to create a transaction information registry that feature a deidentification mechanism to protect privacy and does not require amending existing laws, Liu said.
The registry would be a sufficient tool for assessing the state of the housing market, he said.
The ministry’s recommendation is for the amendments to be bracketed, as the current disclosure rules already cover a majority of housing market actors, including regular and social housing, Department of Land Management Director Wang Cheng-chi (王成機) said.
Several sublet managers during discussions told officials that their clients were often reluctant to provide any information about rents and that proposed disclosure rules would cause an uproar in the industry, he said.
The committee approved the bill for deliberation on the legislature’s floor, but declined to make a decision on its details, saying that the party caucuses should resolve the matter.
In addition, lawmakers passed two resolutions for the ministry to prepare a report on the housing market starting in January next year and propose measures to allow private owners of regular properties to use the services of sublet managing companies six months from now.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS