Taipei City Government

In the interest of ensuring the safety of tenants, even before the Ministry of Interior (MOI) categorizes rental properties that are divided into more than six rooms or equipped with more than 10 beds as “H-1” and identified such properties as “for public use,” Taipei City Construction Management Office (CMO) has already taken action to ask homeowners of such properties to improve interior material fire ratings and escape planning.
 
According to CMO, revelation of incompliance cases often requires members of the public and related agencies due to manpower shortage on the agency’s part and limitations of probing private properties.  
 
Once any incompliance is reported and confirmed, the agency will notify the responsible property owner in writing, informing him or her to conduct safety checkup and file the results within a specified period. As of June 12 this year, seven cases have been processed, according to the agency. If the landlord fails to take due actions accordingly, they will face possible penalties under Article 91 of Building Act.
 
When applying for the renovation permit to divide a property into multiple rooms for rent, the landlord should file a safety report at the same time.
 
For rental properties that are divided into less than six rooms or have less than 10 beds in total, the city has proposed to MOI to expand core requirements on interior materials to ensure tenant rights to safety.