Suncheon City Strengthens Local Housing Association Recruitment Reporting Requirements to Protect Citizens' Property Rights

Securing 80% Land Use Rights · Pre-Report Consultation with the Construction Committee · Refund Specified in Membership Contract

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Suncheon City has implemented a policy to improve the system to enhance transparency for the protection of citizens' property rights regarding the promotion of regional housing association projects, starting from the day before yesterday.

Currently in Suncheon, there are four regional housing association recruitment reports: two in Dongoe-dong, one in Yongdang-dong, and one more in Yongdang-dong. The Namyang Hutton The Soop regional housing association in Yongdang-dong has been approved for establishment, and procedures such as the Architectural Committee review are underway.

A regional housing association is a project where 20 or more people who are either homeless or own only one house with an exclusive area of 85㎡ or less establish an association to promote the construction of multi-family housing. Regardless of whether the head of the household has a subscription savings account, the association and its members act as the project implementers, reducing project implementation costs (land financing costs, developer profits, etc.), allowing housing to be secured at a lower cost compared to general sale housing.

The procedure for promoting association housing proceeds in the order of recruitment report, association establishment approval, traffic impact assessment and Architectural Committee review, project plan approval, groundbreaking, usage inspection, and association dissolution.

The main problems that have occurred in regional housing associations so far include: ▲ purchasing land after recruiting members, which causes the project to take a long time and increases project costs, resulting in additional contributions from members; ▲ estimating the number of households before the project plan is finalized, leading to damage due to inability to approve the construction project after member recruitment; ▲ cases where refunds are not given upon withdrawal after joining, causing harm. These issues have caused delays or failures in regional housing association projects, resulting in damages.

To address these problems, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport amended the Housing Act this year, which has been in effect since July 24. The main amendments include securing more than 50% land use rights at the time of member recruitment report, securing more than 80% land use rights and more than 15% ownership at the time of association establishment approval, imposing the obligation to explain important matters in the membership contract, and allowing withdrawal from membership, which can prevent some damages.

However, since property damage to citizens may still occur under the amended Housing Act, Suncheon City plans to further strengthen the recruitment report requirements for future regional housing associations by ▲ securing more than 80% land use rights, ▲ consulting the Architectural Committee to determine building scale, and ▲ specifying refund regulations for withdrawal in the membership contract to actively prevent damages.

The biggest problem with regional housing associations is that land acquisition is pursued after the member recruitment report. Suncheon City has improved this by increasing the required land use rights from 50% to over 80% at the time of recruitment report, conducting Architectural Committee consultations before recruitment to decide the project scale, and plans to improve refund policies so that full refunds are given within 30 days from the joining date and partial refunds of 5% of the total contribution are given after 30 days upon withdrawal.

A Suncheon City official said, “Through the improvement of the regional housing association system, we will do our best to ensure housing stability for ordinary citizens and prevent damages to members of regional housing association projects.”

Meanwhile, Suncheon City has proposed to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to amend the Housing Act to change the member recruitment report to approval (authorization) so that comprehensive review can be conducted similar to project approval to prevent property damage to citizens during the recruitment report of regional housing association members.

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