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.
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