Although Taiwan is moving toward more transparency in the rental market, 100 percent transparency is not possible, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today.
In a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee, Liu and officials from the Executive Yuan’s Consumer Protection Committee and the Ministry of Finance presented a report on the state and future of the rental market.
The government fully records rental subsidies and social housing, which covers about 60 percent of the rental market, Liu said.
Photo: CNA
The Ministry of the Interior said that full rental price transparency runs the risk of obfuscating the actual situation of the market, difficulty in verifying actual rents, inaccurate information and disrupting the market.
Instead, the government should promote gradual transparency measures, the ministry said.
In the future, the ministry would collect rental subsidy data and publish rental statistics twice a year, it said.
Although lawmakers have asked the Ministry of the Interior to strengthen rent disclosure, even the total number of landlords and tenants is not clear, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Hsueh-chung (丁學忠) said.
It is difficult to fully ascertain the rental market due to the age of some homes and their locations, Liu said.
Furthermore, Taiwan’s respect for rule of law and individual privacy means that 100 percent transparency would be impossible to achieve, Liu added.
KMT Legislator Hsu Yu-chen (許宇甄) questioned whether fraudulent rental price reporting is illegal, to which Liu said that current laws do not mandate strict enforcement.
A comprehensive registration of all rental properties might also result in rent increases and housing shortages in urban areas such as New Taipei City, Liu said.
According to the relevant regulations, brokers can be punished for false rental declarations, but there are no penalties for private renters, Department of Land Administration acting head Lin Chia-cheng (林家正) said.
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