My wife’s father has a home that he inherited from her family. This is the home that my wife’s family have lived in all of their lives (over 100 years old). On the home’s deed, half of it belongs to her father (who inherited it, as mentioned), and the other half belongs to a friend of my wife’s great grandmother who returned to mainland China before the civil war and never returned back to Taiwan since they were cut off. That person is most likely dead, and we have no contact with that person or their family. That person has no other relatives in Taiwan. My wife’s family has paid property on this piece of land to this day. A while ago, the government sent a letter informing that this other person is most likely dead, and that the other half of the property is “unclaimed”…after a certain number of years, if it remains unclaimed, it will go to the government for auction. I am wondering:
Is there some way to remove the other person’s name from the deed or course of action where we can get full ownership of the property? i.e. claim abandonment, or claim ownership by the fact that the other person’s half of the property tax has been paid by our family?
Is the only way to wait for the government to take ownership of the other half of the land, and wait for it to go to auction and then bid/buy it?
Just a guess, but this is probably how it will go down. You have advantage in bidding, since others might be cautious buying property that is 50% owned by other party. That might lead to disagreements and legal battles. Most will want to avoid getting into such risky investment.
Winning the bid the family can finally get 100% ownership.
This might take a long time. Would be great if you come back to let us know how such things play out.
In this case the father will be given first offer to buy from the auction at the court as he is already a half owner. It is unlikely another person would want to buy half the property at auction but it could happen. When auctions occur, you go to the court at 9am, sit there till 12pm. Put your bid in at 11:59am. Or if no one shows up, don’t bid, the price is reduced and a month later another auction held. If after 4 months no one buys the court then waits and does another round of auctions and each time the price is lowered.
The government wont take possession of the property. You cannot remove the name from the deed until auction.
You do not need to waste money on a lawyer. The clerks at the court can give free advice on the auction and procedure. If the court cannot find a remaining relative of the other party to make a claim, ( which even if they could they may not want to ) then the father will be given first notice.
PS this is how I bought my current property. As we were renting it before action we were given first bid from the court. On the day no other bidders turned up so we bid NT$100 more than the minimum amount. lol
Thanks for your reply. My father-in-law says there is 8 years left until the house goes to auction, so if after 8 years, and you are still around, I will be sure to give an update!
Thanks for your insight. Your insight into the bidding process was very helpful. I read about it myself a bit on the Taiwan Land Administration website. I have a few notes, and I am wondering if you had any thoughts, or you might correct my understanding of the situation:
When the house goes into auction, the website says there will be 4 rounds of bidding, and each round will be spaced 2 months apart. Like what you described, with each session, the asking price of the home will go down. I am not sure what happens at the end of the 4 rounds if nobody bids. I guess they keep going indefinitely???
My understanding from the website is that even if somebody does bid, that bid price will be presented to one of the co-owners of the home to see if they are willing to pay that price, and the co-owners will always be given the preference/option to purchase first. I am surprised as a renter, you also have preference.
Based on my two points above, I would think that the strategy in our case would be to just sit it out, as the price of the home goes down (since as you mentioned, the deed is complicated and nobody wants to buy/invest in potentially half of a house). If/when somebody bids on it, the court will send a letter to my father-in-law saying, “hey, somebody offered X-amount, if you want, you can pay us X-amount, or we will take the offer from this person”…at which point we pay, and take ownership of the house.
Thanks for pointing out the clerk as a good source of info. I will tell my wife to get in contact with them to gain more insight.
My father-in-law is in his mid-70’s, and it is one of those things that he wants resolved before he passes, so I was thinking/hoping maybe there is a faster way to resolve it without waiting 8 years, so the “next” generation will need to deal with it. But I guess they have already waited this long, another 8 years probably won’t matter.
I was thinking a lawyer might be a good option too…I think a lot of people were cut off from Taiwan (and mainland China) during the civil war, and were never able to claim their properties. Maybe there is some precedence somewhere to dealing with it, short of waiting for it to go to auction. Our situation is kind of unique since the co-owner is not a relative (so “inheritance” is not part of the argument). Thanks for your suggestion.
Yes if no one bids the price goes down. For some it’s a waiting game. If after the first 4 auctions property is not sold, the court will arrange another time but won’t tell you exactly when. OK the court says you cannot do anything for 8 years. You cannot bring this forward. Neither can anyone else. Best advice, tell your relatives not to tell anyone else about this. Just sit on it and wait. When the court notice comes decide if the price is ok. If so go to court, do as I wrote above, go early but don’t cast a bid, if no one else comes cast a bid for the minimum plus NT$100. You will then be required to buy a bank draft for 10% of the bid price and pay the other 90% I think within a month. If somebody bids on it and you did not then you have someone else with 50% of the property. You have to be at the court on day of auction. Also it goes to the highest bidder.
The court will send a letter asking you to bid. So then you better go to the court. This is what we did. Our auctioned property was over a defaulted loan not a shared inheritance. As we were renting the court notified us of the auction date. Another person found out and went a week later than us… only to find out they were too late lol. These properties are listed on the government auction sites. So anyone from the public can see the property, the share sold, the minimum amount for first auction.
out of interest, would it not be cheaper to trace the person’s decendants and settle with them for the difference between current market value of their half, less the present value of taxes paid? Am assuming the base auction value is more-or-less equivalent to current market value?
The person who owns half the deed, based on the deed information, was born 1876. That would make him 147 years old if he is alive today. Based on my understanding, Taiwan will send letter to people on the deed 140 years AFTER their stated year of birth in an attempt to confirm if this person is alive. After 140 years, most people are dead, so in reality, they are making sure that his/her family need to properly claim this property and transfer it to their name. Their next gen will have 15 years to show up and claim this property. So 7 years have already passed, and his descendants have 8 years left to claim it. Unfortunately, I believe this person actually resided in Fujian, and travelled to Taiwan on business on a regular basis. From the stories, he was somehow “stuck” in Taiwan during the second world war, and after WWII ended, he hurried back home to Fujian to his family, at which point the civil war started, and never managed to come back to Taiwan. He shares the same last name as my father-in-law, so maybe they are somehow related??? Being based out of Fujian, I am guessing if he does have a family left, they are based in China, but we have no idea where to start looking, and to help his next gen claim the property and then transfer it to our name would be a total nightmare since I am guessing his next gen are all mainland Chinese. Also note that this person was in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period, so he does not even have a household registration under the ROC. The house has my wife’s family’s altar, which is important to my father-in-law. I think in the end, after he passes away, I doubt his son or anybody who is supposed to care for the property will actually take care of it, since it is so old and needs a lot of work and constant repair. What happens to the family altar is a big headache for my father-in-law, but my wife is trying to help him sort it out, or at least understand what can be done.
Thanks for the recommendation. My wife was able to contact a lawyer and is awaiting a reply. We need to weigh the cost of a lawyer vs. the cost of buying that second half in 8 years, I guess. The property is not worth a whole lot, so the only purpose of a lawyer would be if it was more cost effective, and most importantly, they could return the property under my father-in-law’s name SOONER so he is “happy”/content before he passes away.
You can’t. This matter can now only be handled by the court. It will be by auction in due course. The descendant’s even if there are any cannot make any legal changes to the deed.
Nothing a lawyer can really do. Nothing will happen so waiting is what happens.
The only thing you will get from a lawyer is a fee for advice that you can simply get free from a visit to the court.
