2017.12.7
Frank Sun
The Supreme Administrative Court rendered the 106-Pan-674 Decision of December 7, 2017 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that if an annotation made by a land office does not restrict land use by the owner, a general payment lawsuit shall not be brought to remove the annotation.
According to the facts underlying this Decision, the Defendant (The Tan Ya Land Office of Taichung City) annotated in the Other Registration Matter field of the Title section of its land register that “the scope of the mortgage on this object is being corrected” (hereinafter, the “Annotation at Issue”). After an objection which had been raised was not dealt with, a general payment lawsuit was brought to compel the removal of the annotation. The original trial court rendered a decision in favor of the Plaintiff. Dissatisfied, the Defendant filed this appeal.
According to this Decision, since the so-called “annotation” did not have direct external legal effect, it was certainly not an administrative disposition. However, if the annotation by a land office has, in fact, affected the perfection state of the land title to the extent that the ownership of the land owner is undermined, a general payment lawsuit may be brought with an administrative court to compel the removal of the infringing act, i.e., the removal of the annotation. Therefore, if the annotation made by a land office does not restrict land usage by the land owner and merely disclose information, a general payment lawsuit cannot be brought to remove the annotation.
It was further pointed out that in the Decision that the Annotation at Issue was made to inform third parties of the fact that the scope of the mortgage on the land at issue was still being corrected. However, the contents of the Annotation at Issue neither affected the Plaintiff’s acquisition of the title of the land at issue nor restricted the Plaintiff’s exercise of his ownership of the land at issue. Since this was a simple disclosure of information and could not be removed by a general payment lawsuit and the original decision, which contained an opposite determination, was certainly unlawful, the original decision was reversed and remanded.