The New Taipei District Court on Tuesday increased the prison term of Chang Shu-ching (張淑晶) — known as the “evil landlady” — by five years and six months for 14 additional counts of lodging false accusations.
More than 160 tenants claim to have been defrauded by her over several years.
The ruling added to a sentence of 98 months that the court in July last year handed Chang, 50, when it convicted her of 22 counts of fraud, lodging false accusations and coercion, affecting 78 tenants.
Chang appealed last year’s decision, which is to be deliberated at the Taiwan High Court.
Chang has been embroiled in many financial and legal disputes with Taiwanese and foreign tenants.
Chang and her boyfriend, Huang Tuo (黃鐸), 55, bought or rented properties that they renovated and subdivided into smaller units in New Taipei City’s Banciao (板橋), Sinjhuang (新莊), Yonghe (永和) and Jhonghe (中和) districts, investigators said.
Over the past few years, Chang has gained notoriety in the news as the “evil landlady” for allegedly defrauding her tenants through means including fraudulent documentation, hidden contract clauses, inflated costs and litigation against tenants.
Chang deceived people by showing them a newly renovated suite in good condition, but provided them another suite of inferior quality after they signed a rental contract and paid their deposit, investigators said.
Other schemes included attaching clauses to signed contracts that forced the tenants to pay more money, such as extra costs for heating and electricity, and a stipulation requiring tenants to pay a NT$100,000 fine if they did not answer the telephone when she called, prosecutors said.
In the ruling in July last year — the first phase of the case concerning 78 tenants — Huang was found not guilty due to lack of evidence.
Tuesday’s ruling — the second phase of the prosecutors’ case — concerned lawsuits that Chang filed against 56 tenants and their relatives or friends, claiming that they defrauded her, damaged rental units and demanded compensation.
Chang had tenants put down names of friends or relatives as people to contact in an emergency, but when disputes occurred, she would sue everyone, claiming that the emergency contacts were “legal guarantors,” prosecutors said, adding that the court ruled that she had lodged false accusations.
The ruling said that Chang knew that most of her tenants were low-income workers or single parents, while some were students who were still minors, but “Chang took advantage of these people, who were at a lower socioeconomic level and who needed to rent a place to live.”
“As most tenants had no knowledge of their legal rights and usually did not read all details on the rental contract, Chang talked them into providing names as emergency contacts ... but she abused the judicial investigative mechanism to sue tenants and their contact persons for her financial gain, while burdening the judicial system and using its resources,” the ruling said.
Tuesday’s ruling can be appealed.
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