Jeong Sun-ae, Gwangju City Council Member: "Waterworks Headquarters Faces Risk of Wasting Citizens' Taxes"

Flood of Lawsuits Against Construction Companies in Housing Development Following Supreme Court Ruling

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Jeong Sun-ae, a member of the Gwangju Metropolitan Council (Democratic Party, Seo-gu 2, Gwangcheon·Dongcheon·Sangmu 1·Yudeok·Chipyeong), pointed out on the 5th during the administrative audit of the Gwangju Metropolitan Waterworks Headquarters that “due to the taxation administration stemming from the Waterworks Headquarters' practices, citizens' tax money is at risk of being wasted.”

The ‘Waterworks Cause Burden Charge’ allows the waterworks operator to make the party responsible for causing the cost of the waterworks construction bear all or part of the necessary expenses.

Until now, the Waterworks Headquarters has customarily imposed the Waterworks Cause Burden Charge on each construction company involved in housing development projects.

However, a recent Supreme Court ruling stated that when a company that purchased land from the housing development project implementer builds apartments, the ‘Waterworks Cause Burden Charge’ should be borne by the housing development project implementer.

Accordingly, from July 28 to August 27, within just one month, construction companies in the Hyochun 1 District and Naenam District have consecutively filed lawsuits against the Waterworks Headquarters, with a total of six cases amounting to litigation costs of 2.555 billion KRW.

But the bigger problem is that there is no proper countermeasure if companies that have paid the cause burden charge in the same way file lawsuits in the future.

Moreover, if the implementer is Gwangju City, re-collection of the cause burden charge is also impossible.

Councilor Jeong Sun-ae stated, “Since similar lawsuits are continuing after the Supreme Court ruling, more lawsuits are expected,” and insisted, “If we lose, we must prepare a method to re-collect the cause burden charge from the implementers.”

Additionally, Councilor Jeong added, “As lawsuits related to similar waterworks facility contribution charges are also awaiting Supreme Court rulings, proactive measures are necessary,” and urged, “Please make efforts to prevent citizens' tax money from being wasted due to lawsuit losses.”

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