Situation: I’m married to a Taiwanese and we are considering buying a house. Since I am the primary bread winner in the family, I will be making 2/3 of the payments on the morgage. Can I be on the house/land title? And or can we go to a nortary and sign papers acknowledging that I made to bulk of the payments? Would this be legal and protect my investment? I have read here on Forumosa so many horror stories of foreinger’s losing everything once their marriage has gone bad. I just want to protect myself for the unknown future.
The house will be in the name of whoever buys it; effectively, whoever holds the mortgage. If you are so concerned about this, put the house and the mortgage in your own name. Many others have already written about this here.
Yes, that’s what I heard.
That all land in China belongs to the state (or people as they may call) so you can only lease land/property for maximum 100 years or so. I think I heard that from an American lawyer practicing in Shanghai.
[quote=“Rayner Lenard”]Yes, that’s what I heard.
That all land in China belongs to the state (or people as they may call) so you can only lease land/property for maximum 100 years or so. I think I heard that from an American lawyer practicing in Shanghai.[/quote]
That has nothing to do with the law in Taiwan. They’re different countries.
That has nothing to do with the law in Taiwan. They’re different countries.[/quote]
Yes well many newbies still brainwashed and confused. But we know better.
My husband and I bought our first house last year. At the time I (stupidly) did not do enough research, so when the construction company told us that foreigners can’t own property here I accepted that, so the house went into my husband’s name.
Another reason for this was that the mortgage is in his name. We did not apply for a joint mortgage because our marriage is not legally recognized in Taiwan (and most other countries).
However, after reading about this on Forumosa I decided that we needed to do something to protect my rights as an equal investor. My main concern was having to deal with his family if something were to happen to him.
Initially we were going to get some documents drawn up by a lawyer (at the suggestion of his parents), but I felt that was too feeble.
Hubby did some research (finally) and found out that he could go to the land registry and tax office and ‘donate’ a percentage of the house’s value to me.
We did this, I paid about NT$18000 in tax and fees, and I now have title deeds for both land and the house, showing 50% ownership.
It is important to note that there is a potential downside (for the mortgage holder) to this: the mortgage is still in my husband’s name, but I have 50% ownership of the property.