A, who failed to return nearly 35.8 billion won of jeonse (renting homes for a large lumpsum deposit) deposits to his tenants, was confirmed to have purchased a number of homes under the name of a corporate he owned.

On September 29, Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker So Byung-hoon, a member of the parliamentary Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, said, “Recently, while analyzing the ownership and the relationship between rights and duties concerning homes owned by six hostile landlords who intentionally or regularly failed to return tenants’ deposits, we discovered that A had purchased four multiplex houses (referred to as villas in Korea) in Hwagok-dong, Gangseo-gu and Jangan-dong, Dongdaemun-gu in Seoul in June and July 2020 under the name of his company.”

A did not return deposits totalling 35,799,250,000 won to his tenants after leases were terminated according to the details of reports on unreturned jeonse deposit cases submitted to the Korea Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG) by August 31, 2021.

The homes that A purchased in the name of his corporation were multiplex houses with two-bedroom homes 26-43 m2 in size, which were in high demand among young people and newlyweds, according to lawmaker So. So explained, “These houses were owned by previous owners who also engaged in the home rental business,” and said, “We confirmed that like A, they were in the home rental business and from 2019, they were unable to return the jeonse deposits to their tenants.”

The lawmaker said, “Now that it has become practically impossible for these malicious owners to engage in the home rental business and ‘gap speculation (purchasing homes with little cash and paying for the rest with jeonse deposits from tenants)’ in their own names, we confirmed that they engaged in such risky activities in the name of companies they owned,” and added, “The government should investigate the corporates owned by malicious landlords.”