Court: "School Dormitories Are Also Multi-Family Housing... Development Charges Must Be Paid"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The court has ruled that school dormitories should be classified as 'multi-family housing' under current law, and that development charges should be imposed on development profits.

The Seoul Administrative Court, Administrative Division 5 (Presiding Judge Yangjun Park) ruled against the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the Hongik Foundation against Mapo District Office, requesting the cancellation of the development charge imposed on the dormitory. The court explained, "Since Hongik University obtained development permission and completion inspection for the dormitory as 'multi-family housing dormitory' under the law, it falls under the scope of development charges."

Under current law, dormitories used for school students, where more than 50% of households share a communal cooking facility in one building, are classified as 'multi-family housing.' The court added, "Even if the school foundation cannot freely exercise property rights over the dormitory building and land, since the rights to use, profit from, and dispose of the property still belong to the school foundation, it must be considered that the school foundation gained development profits from the dormitory land development project."

Previously, Hongik University completed the construction of a new dormitory at the end of 2017. The competent district office, Mapo District Office, regarded this as subject to recovery under the Development Gains Recovery Act and imposed a development charge of approximately 1.7 billion KRW. Hongik University appealed to the Central Land Expropriation Committee for administrative review, but after it was dismissed, they filed a lawsuit in court.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.