The encyclopedia · Finance & Accounting · Financial decision · 2025
Ju Hong Construction took NT$24M in deposits, then the owner disappeared
A small Taiwanese developer in Chiayi accepted down payments from 19 families on a project it could never finish — then the owner went missing.
Ju Hong Construction · Tai Chi Construction · Ching Chun Development · 2025-05
What happened
Ju Hong Construction (鉅泓建設) was a small developer based in Chiayi, Taiwan. Its project, "Zhen Pin Wu" (臻品舞), was scheduled for handover in 2024. The company collected down payments of approximately NT$24 million from 19 households who had bought units in the building.
The project was delayed past its scheduled completion date. In February 2025, the owner went missing entirely. The 19 families who had paid deposits — about NT$24 million total — faced total loss of their down payments with no legal recourse. The abandoned project site was reported to have had aluminum windows, doors, and fire-fighting equipment stripped from it.
Ju Hong was one of at least four Taiwanese construction companies that collapsed in the same wave in mid-2025. Tai Chi Construction in Hualien also declared bankruptcy around May 2025, leaving 46 homebuyers affected on its "Green Fairy Tale" project. Ching Chun Development in Tainan announced its closure after completing its final unit, citing NT$30-40 million in debts. The broader crisis was driven by seven rounds of government housing cooling policies, rising material costs, and a construction company that maliciously delayed payments.
Why it happened
- Government housing cooling policies — seven rounds of credit controls and tax increases — squeezed small developers who relied on fast sales to fund construction.
- Rising raw material and labor costs eroded margins on fixed-price contracts that had been signed years earlier, turning once-profitable projects into loss-makers.
- Small developers lacked the balance sheet to absorb even a single project's delay; one missed payment could cascade into a total collapse.
- The owner's decision to collect deposits from 19 families without completing the project created a direct loss for homebuyers who had no insurance or protection against developer default.
The lesson
If a project's margin depends on fast sales, a policy shift that slows the market is a solvency event, not a setback. Taiwan's cooling policies were public — developers who priced them in survived.
Aftermath
The 19 affected families faced total loss of their down payments with no insurance compensation. The case was part of a broader wave of small developer failures in Taiwan during 2025, with at least four companies collapsing. The government did not provide compensation, and the legal system offered no path to recovery for homebuyers whose developer disappeared.
Sources
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