Supreme Court: "Apartment Women's Association Profits Are Not Residents' Income"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] The Supreme Court has ruled that it is not possible to punish an apartment women's association for not using its profits according to the apartment management regulations. Unless the women's association income is defined as the joint income of the apartment residents, it is considered the property of the women's association.

On the 3rd, the Supreme Court's 3rd Division (Presiding Justice No Taeak) overturned and remanded the Busan District Court's original ruling, which had found Lee (72) guilty on embezzlement charges in his appeal trial.

Lee served as the president of the women's association of an apartment in Dongnae-gu, Busan from 1997 to 2014 and was prosecuted for using 73 million won of apartment miscellaneous income as women's association operating expenses over four years starting in 2010. During this period, the women's association spent income from recycling fees, bulletin board advertisements, and bazaar profits on resident senior citizen party expenses, Silver University support costs, scholarships, and more.

The first and second trials sentenced Lee to six months in prison with a one-year probation, stating that he embezzled the apartment miscellaneous income by using it arbitrarily. According to the Enforcement Decree of the Housing Act, "income generated from the management of common housing facilities such as facility usage fees" is classified as apartment common miscellaneous income and must be used for all residents. The apartment management regulations also specified that "miscellaneous income generated from the sale of recyclables" was "miscellaneous income contributed jointly by residents and users," which was a basis for the ruling.

However, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling. The court stated, "The women's association is a group voluntarily formed by housewives and is an independent corporation separate from the residents' representative meeting," and judged that "the women's association income cannot be considered as belonging to all residents." Furthermore, "there is no agreement between the women's association and the residents' representative meeting that the women's association income belongs to the residents, nor is there any related apartment management regulation," and ruled that "unless there are special circumstances, miscellaneous income from the women's association's common housing management activities belongs to the women's association members."

The court added, "The lower court erred in its legal interpretation regarding the establishment of embezzlement and this affected the judgment," and sent the case back to the Busan District Court.

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