Property developer Huaku Development Co (華固建設) yesterday said it has agreed to absorb lease increases and other costs for buyers of its new housing complex on a state-owned plot of land for the next decade after buyers protested outside its annual shareholders’ meeting.
More than 20 people staged a demonstration outside the meeting’s venue, accusing the Taipei-based developer of cheating them into buying presale apartments in Taipei’s Jingmei (景美) area for which they do not have ownership of the land or the apartments.
The buyers are only to have the right to use the apartments after construction is completed later this year.
Photo: Chen Yung-chi, Taipei Times
That would make it difficult to secure mortgages or sell if relocation is necessary, the protesters said, adding that the steep increase in lease rates in recent years deepens their grievances.
Huaku general-manager Carson Hung (洪嘉昇) said the company clarified the ownership issue with all potential buyers and recorded the procedure.
However, the developer said it would pay for the increase in annual lease costs — which has risen from NT$65,000 (US$2,160) upon the launch of the project in 2014 to NT$90,000 this year for apartments of 43 ping (141.9m2) — for 10 years, Hung said.
In addition, the company would pick up fire and earthquake insurance fees, as well as fees to install gas pipelines, Hung said.
Altogether, the extra cost would be between NT$200,000 and NT$400,000 per apartment, he said.
Huaku has sold more than 600 units in the complex at 60 percent of market rates, while about 550 contracts remain effective, Hung said.
A drop in housing prices over the past two years has led scores of buyers to seek termination of their purchase agreements, he said.
To avoid terminations, Huaku has promised to help secure bank loans at interest rates of 2.16 percent, higher than the average rate for a mortgage, but the lowest for superfices-related financing, Hung said.
The company would not enter similar development projects in the future, as most Taiwanese find properties without permanent ownership unacceptable, although the practice is common abroad, Hung said.
Huaku won the 70-year lease from the Ministry of Finance in 2013 to develop the residential complex on a piece of state-owned land of 33,000m2 on Roosevelt Road between Wanlong MRT Station and Jingmei MRT Station.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained