I’m planning to rent an apartment in New Taipei City and want to protect myself from severe or exaggerated damage claims.
I understand the legal security deposit limit is 2 months’ rent, and I can accept that as the maximum risk. However, any liability beyond the deposit is unacceptable.
In practice, what lease clauses or arrangements are important to make sure a tenant cannot be held liable for large damage costs beyond the deposit, especially in disputes about wear and tear vs. actual damage?
I’m not sure that’s realistically possible. What if you destroy the place? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a dispute about wear and tear that exceeded the amount of the deposit, are you aware of any such examples?
If I was a landlord I would be thinking WTF is this person planning to do in my property.
The best way to limit your liability is the look after the property, and remedy any damage/cleanliness before the lease ends.
There’s surely no way. If you damage the place beyond the cost of deposit you’re going to get sued. Take photos of everything before you move in if you’re worried about the landlord lying when you move out.
Get liability insurance (seems to be not commonly available in Taiwan - but with some digging, one might be able to get a policy abroad with worldwide coverage in their country of citizenship).
Practically speaking, though, most landlords are already rather happy when you pay on time and return the apartment reasonably clean.
Some might still try to keep your deposit - but from what I’ve heard cases where a landlord would sue a former tenant in excess of the deposit are very rare in Taiwan - I think the most common scenario is suing a tenant’s heirs after the tenant died in the apartment for loss of property value.
Whatever you do they can chase you for the money. Your idea has real problems, what if started a fire and destroyed the place - I am sure that would be more than 2 months rent.