Amendments to two laws were approved in a Cabinet meeting yesterday as part of the government’s efforts to achieve property transaction transparency in a bid to curb skyrocketing property prices.
The amendments to the Land Administration Agent Act (地政士法) and the Equalization of Land Rights Act (平均地權條例) were -included in a list of 61 priority bills the Executive Yuan wishes to push through the new legislative session, which convenes today.
If the two amendments, along with the Real Estate Broking Management Act (不動產經紀業管理條例) sitting in the legislature for review, are passed, real-estate agents, home buyers and real-estate brokers would be required to register the actual value of real-estate transactions online within 30 days of the date of the transaction.
The amendments stipulate that real-estate brokers, home buyers and real-estate agents will be fined between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000 if they fail to register the transaction’s value or register false transaction prices.
After a fine is levied, if the parties fail to rectify the transaction value within a prescribed period of time, consecutive fines may be imposed until the information is registered correctly, the amendments state.
After an online database of real-estate transaction prices is established, the information imbalance between buyers and sellers will be addressed by enabling the former to understand the actual real-estate market values on specific roads or intersections, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) was quoted as saying in a statement released by the Executive Yuan.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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