[2020 National Audit] Deposit Lost by Tenants After Jeonse House Auction Reached 459.7 Billion Won Over 6 Years

Unreturned Deposits, Half of Apartments
Annual Increase in Number and Amount of Incidents

Gangnam Songpa Apartment. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Jiwon] It has been revealed that the total amount of jeonse deposits that tenants failed to recover from landlords due to their homes being auctioned off reached 459.7 billion KRW over the past six years.

According to data submitted by the Supreme Court to Park Sanghyuk, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, from 2015 to July of this year, there were a total of 13,691 cases where tenants did not receive their deposits back as their homes were auctioned. The total amount involved was 459.76976 billion KRW.

From the beginning of this year to July, the amount of unpaid tenant deposits due to auctions was 58.9 billion KRW (1,349 cases), approaching the full-year unpaid amounts of 60.2 billion KRW (1,738 cases) in 2018 and 73 billion KRW (2,092 cases) in 2019. This indicates that the amount of deposits tenants fail to recover is increasing annually.

By housing type, over five years, unpaid amounts related to apartments accounted for about half, totaling 219.3 billion KRW (5,528 cases). Detached houses and multi-family houses amounted to 130.6 billion KRW (3,922 cases), while row houses, multi-unit houses, and villas totaled 109.7 billion KRW (4,241 cases).

The proportion of unpaid amounts related to apartments continues to rise. In 2018, apartments accounted for 40.9% of the total unpaid amount, but this increased to 44.5% last year and 47.4% this year.

The number of real estate auction cases has also been increasing, with 37,576 cases in 2017, 46,705 in 2018, 59,954 in 2019, and 38,989 as of July 2020.

Representative Park stated, "As cases where tenants fail to properly recover their deposits due to issues like 'empty jeonse' are increasing, it is necessary to strengthen tenant housing stability measures such as jeonse deposit insurance."

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