I would really appreciate it if someone could help me understand this situation better:
My air conditioner recently broke down. I would like to call my landlord to ask him if there is someone “special” that he would like me to call in order to have it fixed, as well as to make sure that the cost of repairs does not become my responsibility. Upon speaking to a Taiwanese friend of mine, I was informed that the air conditioner would actually be my responsibility, as I am living there and it was working fine when the landlord left.
My water heater broke down about a week after moving in, and when I brought this up I was told that it was repaired (paid by the landlord) because we had just moved in and it was probably not our fault. As I have now lived there for a year, the air conditioner however was probably broken as a result of my use.
Additionally, it is customary in Taiwan that a rental tenant is responsible for maintainance of all the utilities contained within the apartment. So the broken air conditioner is my bad luck.
Is this truly the case in Taiwan?
And does anyone know who I can call to fix my busted-ass AC?
I’ve been in my place for over 12 months and my landlord had fixed the broken hot water service, electrical problem with the lights in the kitchen and leaking roof. Hope nothing else goes wrong but my experiences have been good ones. That’s al I have to share.
[quote=“dilemma”]My air conditioner recently broke down. I would like to call my landlord to ask him if there is someone “special” that he would like me to call in order to have it fixed, as well as to make sure that the cost of repairs does not become my responsibility. Upon speaking to a Taiwanese friend of mine, I was informed that the air conditioner would actually be my responsibility, as I am living there and it was working fine when the landlord left.
[/quote]
Bullshit. I don’t doubt that some landlords would try to pull this sort of shit, but that is not “how it works.” When I was living in rented housing in Taiwan, water heaters, refrigerators and air conditioners broke down. They were all repaired or replaced by the landlord. I lived in three different places. General wear on the landlord’s property is the landlord’s responsibility. Unless you have done something to damage his property, he should pay for repairs or replacement. If you break a window, then you would be responsible. For an AC, though, how the hell could you break it? Your Taiwanese friend is misinformed. Has he or she lived in rented housing before? I have found that it is best to take what Taiwanese people-especially young Taiwanese people- say about rental and leasing norms with a grain of salt. Most Taiwanese people never move out on their own and they have relatively little experience with things like renting an apartment. Call that damn landlord. If there is a language barrier between the two of you, then find a Taiwanese person who agrees with your position and have them call for you. You don’t want some twentysomething year old momma’s boy or xiaojie who’s still living at home and has no clue about leases calling the landlord and caving into whatever bullshit the landlord tries to give them.
This is nonsense. Tell your landlord you consider this to be a breach of contract and you’re moving out. Sounds like a real asshole. Mind you, a lot of them are until you push it with them.
Those are the questions you need to ask before you move in. I walked straight out of a discussion with some old biddy in Yong He because she thought part of my responsibility was to maintain HER air conditioners. Bollocks. Just look at you landlord and say “You want ME, to repair YOUR air conditioners. Would you like me to wash your car too ? What if the house falls down ? Would you like me to rebuild it for you ?”
Just move out or get kicked out. I have had two landlords since arriving in Taiwan. The first one was terrible and the new one is great!!!
The first landlord in Tienmu kicked me out arbitrarily, overcharged me with 3 months security deposit, and then cheated me out of one month rent even when she stated she would not penalize me. She told me she wanted me to leave early, that we should decide on a date, and there would be no penalty. When I told her about the date, she said it was too early and then she deducted one month from the security deposit. She also fixed nothing when it broke. Basically she played upon my ignorance or
You guys need to read the original post again. He/she didn’t say the landlord refused to fix the AC, just that a friend had said that it’s not the landlord’s respnsibility. No need to move out just yet.
Yes, the AC and that sort of thing are the responsibility of the landlord. Even if that’s not legally spelt out, it is the usual practice in Taiwan. This has been my experience both as a tenant and a landlord.
I treat everything that was in the apartment at the time when I moved in as property and under responsibility of the landlord, including the air-condition. I only clean the filters of those, nothing more.
Something doesn’t work, I call the landlord (to be exact: I have my company call her).
That said one of my air-cons is giving trouble and the landlord attended to it promptly (not fixed yet, but some contractor is working on it).
She also got the water heater fixed two times, brandnew at the time I moved in about 2 years ago, but it keeps on breaking down though it’s always repaired within a day.
