Ministry flips on mandated home safety checkups

‘PANIC-INDUCING’: A DPP legislator said the policy would cause panic if it was implemented, and another said the measures had been sprung upon them

By Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter





Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) yesterday backpedaled on plans to implement “mandatory” safety inspections of old homes, saying that changes to the policy of “encouraging” such checkups were still under deliberation after the proposal drew fire from the Executive Yuan and lawmakers across party lines.

“The current system is to encourage safety inspections with government subsidies and there is room for further deliberation on how to boost safety,” Yeh said at a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, denying that ministry plans would require homes to receive a clean bill of health before being sold.

The ministry late on Wednesday night said it was considering amendments to the Building Act (建築法) that would require older homes to be evaluated for their ability to withstand earthquakes and that the results would have to be provided as part of any sale, following earlier remarks by Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) at an academic conference.

Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong speaks at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

Hua was not part of the ministry’s delegation at a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee yesterday, which heard delayed deliberations on amendments to the Housing Act (住宅法) as legislators questioned Yeh.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) criticized the policy, saying it lacked clear “supplementary measures” to cushion its impact, while its implementation would “cause panic.”

“What in the world is going on with these statements? I am the convener of our legislative caucus’ policy working group, but I never knew anything about this,” DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said. “I can understand that the intentions of your housing policy are good and we would like to cooperate, but springing this is like ‘a speck of rat dung spoiling a whole pot of porridge’ — it draws all the attention.”

“These requirements would only increase disputes between buyers and sellers, and at this pace it will take you 100 years before we can complete all the safety inspections,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said, citing ministry figures on the number of subsidized inspections conducted every year compared with the total number of homes.

According to ministry figures, more than 67 percent of the nation’s homes are older than 20 years, which the ministry proposes as the benchmark for requiring safety inspections.

Earthquakes are less of a concern for houses built after the 921 Earthquake in 1999, because of stricter building standards imposed thereafter, Yeh said.

The Internal Administration Committee passed a motion calling for the ministry to draft and report to the committee on a comprehensive package of “supplementary measures” and a feasibility study before implementing any mandatory checkups for homes.

Executive Yuan spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said that the ministry’s proposal was “immature” and had not been submitted to the Cabinet for review.

While Premier Lin Chuan (林全) did not comment directly, DPP caucus director-general Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) said following a “lunchbox meeting” with Lin that the premier “does not approve” of the ministry’s plan, because home inspections should be voluntary with the government providing subsidies that are not tied to home sales.

Additional reporting by CNA