The Ministry of Finance (MOF) yesterday said it had found 1,502 suspected cases of dummy buyers and abuses of preferential house loans in contravention of the self-occupancy rule.
The announcement follows the ministry’s move to crack down on abuses of favorable lending terms that include interest subsidies, a five-year grace period and mortgages of up to 40 years to help people purchase their first home for self-occupancy.
“With help from state-run banks and government data, we spotted 170 dummy buyers and another 1,332 mortgagers who leased out their houses,” it said in a statement.
Photo: CNA
The ministry has drawn criticism for rekindling housing fever by introducing the favorable lending terms in August last year.
Critics say the program and stock market rally have canceled the effect of a series of credit controls and policy measures that had earlier slowed housing transactions and price hikes.
The ministry said the results came from its first wave of inspections of housing deals from Aug. 1 last year to March 31 this year.
Housing transactions carried out from April 1 would be the focus of the second-wave probe, the ministry said, adding that it is confident that loan abuses would drop from June 27 when mortgagers are required to sign an affidavit stating that the house they are buying is for self-occupancy.
Violators would have their preferential lending terms revoked and they must return the interest differential, the ministry said.
In addition, favorable lending terms are limited to once per person, meaning that those who sell a home purchased under the program would not qualify in the future.
Property investors and wealthy people have allegedly used dummy buyers, including their children, to take advantage of the program and advance asset allocation purposes.
Tightened mortgage reviews appear to be effective, with loan applications last month declining 10.74 percent to NT$56.77 billion (US$1.74 billion) and 12.44 percent to 7,244 units, the ministry said.
The program is aimed at helping households without their own homes and unqualified buyers should not abuse the government’s goodwill, it said.
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產), the nation’s largest broker by number of franchises, said that the incidence of abuse was quite low, accounting for only 2.3 percent of 65,000 approved applications.
The small number suggests that real demand underpinned the housing boom for the past 11 months and should continue to lend support to the market, H&B head researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said.
The double-digit percentage drop last month showed that the market took the government’s warnings seriously, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said.
A longer observation of the market is needed to determine if the boom would be sustainable for the remainder of the year, it said.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
DOLLAR SIGNS: The central bank rejected claims that the NT dollar had appreciated 10 percentage points more than the yen or the won against the greenback The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell for a sixth day to its weakest level in three months, driven by equity-related outflows and reactions to an economics official’s exchange rate remarks. The NT dollar slid NT$0.197, or 0.65 percent, to close at NT$30.505 per US dollar, central bank data showed. The local currency has depreciated 1.97 percent so far this month, ranking as the weakest performer among Asian currencies. Dealers attributed the retreat to foreign investors wiring capital gains and dividends abroad after taking profit in local shares. They also pointed to reports that Washington might consider taking equity stakes in chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor
STABLE DEMAND: Delta supplies US clients in the aerospace, defense and machinery segments, and expects second-half sales to be similar to the first half Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) expects its US automation business to remain steady in the second half, with no signs of weakening client demand. With demand from US clients remaining solid, its performance in the second half is expected to be similar to that of the first half, Andy Liu (劉佳容), general manager of the company’s industrial automation business group, said on the sidelines of the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei on Wednesday. The company earlier reported that revenue from its automation business grew 7 percent year-on-year to NT$27.22 billion (US$889.98 million) in the first half, accounting for 11 percent
RSS