HI Folks!
I visited two banks here regarding obtaining a home loan here in Taiwan. One bank said, I need a guarantor who is a Taiwanese family member, such as a spouse. The other bank said I didn’t need one.
I suspect their are national laws that prevent this kind of subjective treatment. What are they?
How can they be enforced? Is there any effective apparatus that mediates or enforces the national law, if it exists?
Thank you.
Dan
Banks will sometimes require even citizens to have a guarantor. One of my expat friends went as guarantor for his ROC wife to get a loan. He had already had a loan in his own name.
Many threads on how to complain to the FSC and MOI for credit cards loans etc. So can use those.
Yep. Just go with the banks that say you don’t need one.
Don’t waste your time right now with this. Banks are petty and would blacklist you.
Take it from someone who has gone through the ringer.
I’d rather just help you with my own experiences of doing it as a completely single and independent person who owns a house.
If possible, please share which bank said this. Would be good to maintain a list of foreigner friendly banks for mortgages at some point. @Marco, you are with Taishin, right?
HSBC is one. LLARY a former poster here wrote back in 2006 how to get mortgages here with banks. He was single so no ROC partner.
Under what conditions do they ask for cosigners. Not buying a house anytime soon but just wondering. I believe Christians in Taiwan universally oppose being cosigners or having someone cosign.
They measure how long your nose is
Thank you. I’ll heed your advice. May I PM you if I need to ask some details involving private information? @Marco
HSBC issued me my first credit card with a very high limit and are cooperative about my applying for a home loan. It’s helpful if you’re a premier customer. It’s free in Taiwan if you have one in your home country even if you don’t meet the requirements of the home country and just pay the fee.
HSBC
First Bank
Standard Chartered (but this bank piles on other requirements and is just messy to deal with - I pulled my money out of there yesterday)
Yeah sure!
APRC Foreigner here, with Taiwanese wife.
About to buy a new property, Standard Chartered advised my wife a few days back they would happily give us a mortgage loan for amount requested, but they cannot consider my savings/investments in Taiwan as part of our assets & the security, as I am a foreigner ?
Makes no sense ?
Go through your wife, there are certain government backed mortgage packages available to nationals that have lower interest rates, I think right now it is 1.775% if you don’t have any other property.
Just make sure you and your wife both hold the deed to the house. Do not put it all in her name. She can kick you out with nothing but the shirt on your back if you do this, whenever things turn sour. Seen it happen too many times.
Going through the Taiwanese spouse legitimises the discrimination we face.
Just dont even bother with Standard Chartered if they will only consider your wife as you are a foreigner. Find a bank that will treat you with dignity.
It also means saving hundreds of thousands in interest over the course of the mortgage
Assuming the marriage lasts that long. I pay 2%. It’s worth the extra security to have it in my name given how vulnerable we already are.
I’ve been on the receiving end of Taiwanese pettiness too many times.
I just calculated the difference between 2% and 1.775%.
It’s $100000 over a 20 year mortgage.
$3000 USD.
$3000 is not worth the vulnerability. Over 20 years, $3000 is not worth anyone’s time.
$12 per month.
But that’s because you bought during a time of lower interest rates, right? Interest rates now without the government benefit are between 2.5 and 3%. With the government benefit available to nationals that goes down to 1.775%. Being able to cut your interest payments in half by going through your spouse seems like a no brainer to me, and certainly seems better than perhaps slightly helping the effort of other foreigners buying houses here. I’m not gonna pay millions more just to make a point.
Besides, what extra security do you get going through your own name? Property is split up upon divorce unless specifically pre-defined before the marriage.
1.775% vs 3% on a 15 mill mortgage for 35 years is a difference of 4,095,671.63 NT in interest. I’d rather save that 4 mill personally. Feeling all proud cos some shitbox apartment is in my name rather than my wife’s isn’t worth retiring 4 years later.
Mine are not fixed. They go up and down with the times.
It’s a huge brainer for me. It’s not only about making a point. The interest rate benefit is not only discriminatory, but that’s not what i am talking about. I don’t want to legitimise the banks using spouses for foreigners to get a mortgage. It locks the rest of us out.
Secondly, to save what is essentially a pittance over time while making one particularly vulnerable is a bad move.
The banks often ask that the deed to be in the spouse’s name, and many spouses have managed to ‘steal’ the house from under the foreigner because it’s in her name while he pays the mortgage. Not worth the vulnerability.
In my case it’s $100000 TWD.
It has nothing to do with pride. It’s about security. I pay, it’s my property rights. It’s about protecting my investment. A theoretical $100000 US saved is not worth the risk that a wife might get greedy in possible divorce proceedings. Too many foreigners have lost everything in divorce proceedings.
At the same time, this 1.775% is not for the life of the mortgage.
And also:
Assuming I am paying for the mortgage in its entirety: You divorce and half goes to the wife on this $15 million house. So you sacrificed 7½ million to save 4?