The private lands established as roads mostly originated from the Japanese colonial period, during which the officials instructed the people to contribute lands to open roads. Since the public has used these roads for many years, they have become established roads for public easements. In addition, some landowners donated or signed the free-using agreement for the government to open roads, for the purpose of making transportation convenient or constructing buildings near the road. However, the property rights transfer registration or annotation was not completed at that time, resulting in the situation that the lands are still privately owned now. There are also cases such as the land was originally registered as public property when the road was opened, but the original landowner restored or obtained the ownership according to law, or other reasons that cannot be confirmed, so these roads are currently opened for road use but still privately owned now. These privately owned existing roads are due to various historical background factors in the past, which have accumulated to a large number of privately owned established roads that require huge compensation funds. It is not caused by the current government's forced use of people's private land when opening roads.
In the early days when the government was engaged in road widening and improvement, due to financial difficulties, it was unable to raise huge compensation to process the expropriation of private land that had been established as road. According to the Executive Yuan's letter No. 6301 (code: "台67內字第6301號函") dated July 14, 1978, the land categoried as Road in the General Registration of Land will be still used as road according to the public easement relationship and the expropriation will be suspended. In addition, in order to protect the property rights of the owners, the Highway Bureau has stipulated since 1983 that when carrying out widening and improvement projects, the privately owned existing road land within the project scope must be included in the budget for expropriation and compensation.
Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 400 of 1996 explained: "If a privately owned established highway meets certain requirements and a public easement relationship is established, the owner of the land will no longer be able to freely use the land for income..., the state shall expropriate it and provide compensation in accordance with the provisions of the law. … Relevant agencies should also set a time limit to raise financial resources to handle itmatter year by year or use other methods to compensate." Since then, the governments have included the privately owned land which established as a road within the project scope into compensation when handling road widening and improvement, but there are still many uncompensated areas. In order to solve the problem of expropriation and compensation for privately owned land in established roads, the Executive Yuan revised and approved the 11 principles for the "Project of Handling the Problem of Acquisition of Privately Owned Established Roads in accordance with the Judicial Yuan Interpretation No. 400" on September 10, 2010, for all agencies to comply.
Due to the difficulty in raising funds, the Highway Bureau has formulated the Directions for Acquisition and Treatment of Privately Owned Land Established as Road Managed by the Highway Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communications, following the 11 principles approved by the Executive Yuan, to gradually solved the problem of privately owned land established as road managed by Highway Bureau in the highway system over a period of time. According to the Directions, the acquisition of the privately owned land established as a road is divided into the Main Acquisition Method and the Auxiliary Acquisition Methods, explained respectively as follows:
1. Main Acquisition Method
When Highway Bureau carries out highway widening and improvement projects, the privately owned land which established as road within the project scope should be included in the budget for expropriation and compensation as other privately owned land.
2. Auxiliary Acquisition Methods
The Auxiliary Acquisition Methods are respectively explained as follows:
Exchanging the private land with public land: According to the Regulations for Exchanging the Private Land Reserved for Public Facilities with Public Land in Urban Planing Area, the owner can apply for exchange. If privately owned road land is located within the scope of urban planning and is reserved for public facilities, the owner may apply for exchange with the public land which is announced as exchangeable by special municipality or county/city governments.
Floor Area Rights Transfer: According to the Regulations for Floor Area Rights Transfer in Urban Planning, apply for floor area rights transfer. If privately owned road land is located within the scope of urban planning and is designated as public facility reserved land, the owner may apply to the municipality or county (city) government for floor area right transfer and donation the land to the government.
Contribution: According to the Income Tax Act article 17 paragraph 1, the owner of private land which established as road can contribute it to the government, and itemize its value as deductions of the Income Tax.
Surrendering the Estate and Gift Tax: According to the Estate and Gift Tax Act article 30 paragraph 4, if the estate tax or gift tax payable amounts to $300,000 or more, and the taxpayer has difficulty paying the full amount in cash, he or she may apply for permission to pay the deficient part of the tax in full by surrendering the taxed property. Therefore, the private land which established as road and reserved for public facilities in urban planing can be surrendered to pay the tax according to The Enforcement Rules of the Estate and Gift Tax Act article 44.
The Highway Bureau has acquired amount of land for established roads with the "Directions for Acquisition and Treatment of Privately Owned Land Established as Road Managed by the Highway Bureau, MOTC" in the past. However, in recent years, most highway have been widened and improved, and the auxiliary acquisition method is applied by land owners themselves and the results are not obvious, resulting in a decrease in the amount of acquired land for established roads, but there are still many landowners of the established roads on highway who have not received compensation. In order to speed up the process of compensation, the Highway Bureau has allocated additional funds every year since 2024 to handle bidding and purchasing for the private land which established as road.