In my travels around Taiwan I have found at least six abandoned houses up in the hills where apparently, no one wants to live. I was wondering if anyone here knows what the procedure would be for finding the owner of such properties, as they are not listed (to my knowledge) on 591.com.
If anyone has any advice or experience in this matter – it would be greatly appreciated!
I am not going to pretend I know everything.
But it is my understanding that there is little one can do short of tracking down the owner and asking. Taiwan’s property rights are quite strong.
I could be wrong, but if it’s not being auctioned off or expropriated(emminent domain for USians), there’s nothing you can do.
You could look for a local real estate agent to track it down. They’d perhaps know how to look it up.
I’ve noticed the same thing around where I live. Some of the places I guess might be illegally built, others probably so rotten they can’t be lived in.
Something I was warned about on here was that a piece of property might be left to the kids, who leave it to their kids, and so on, until the place is basically unsellable because it is so hard to track down all the owners and get them to agree to a sale price…
Japan has lots of old and abandoned houses for sale. I wish we had some of them her.
There’s a high chance those properties are tied up in family disputes where they need signature from one owner who is either indisposed or unwilling to sign to have anything done with it.
Oh and depending on their locations, they’re worth far too much for anyone to bother doing anything with it. Seen listings on 591 of properties in very poor condition going for 20 million or more just because of location.
Those 1 euro houses are much better deals in comparison.
You can check on the 591 and see if you can find it. It doesn’t matter if is abandoned, they will still ask a lot of money. Especially now that the government fuck it up with the first time buyers loans and there is a bubble.
That’s exactly what you do.
In my opinion, Get a scooter, get some networking going on for many months whilst living there, speak to as many old people as possible without looking like a city person asking naive questions and slowly get to know all the areas’ intricate stories and histories. That’s how it’s done in my opinion, it’s how locals do it as well. As soon as an agent is involved, expect a 50-300% increase in asking price from the get.
There are 2 options. Spend more time or spend more money 
The one euro houses exist because the governments have spines and tell their property owners that if they’re going to allow property to fall into disrepair (which makes the space around look hideous, leading to further degradation of the area, but more importantly is a massive safety issue — people falling through floors, building collapsing with people inside that aren’t known about, fire department doesn’t know to look for people in event of fire, etc.) the government will take care of it by finding someone who will.
I tell people here about the one euro houses and they say “the Taiwanese government would never get away with that kind of theft”. That’s correct. Just as the Taiwanese government will never get away with keeping what sidewalks there are clear, making pedestrian crossings safe, banning darkly tinted car windows, and sending parents to prison for engadering the lives of their new born babies by carrying them (helmetless!) in hand on scooters, the Taiwan government will never sell off abandoned property for NT30, no matter how much of death traps they become.
Taiwanese siblings are world champions in falling out over inheritance. 47% of families do so (might be a made up figure). So there’s loads of properties that sit rotting while the kids argue for years.
Could be that being up in the hills those houses were illegally built as well. You can go to the land office to see who owns the property.