So Byung-hoon: "425 'Bad Landlords' Who Embezzled Tenant Deposits of 579.3 Billion Won Must Be Disclosed"

So Byung-hoon, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ryu Tae-min] Recently, the amount of damage caused by the non-return of jeonse deposits from Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation and SGI Seoul Guarantee reached 1.9499 trillion won, approaching 2 trillion won. Among them, the landlord who embezzled the largest amount of jeonse deposits reported to Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation (hereinafter HUG) was Mr. A, who embezzled 57.669 billion won.

According to an analysis of the detailed data on jeonse deposit non-return incidents submitted by HUG by So Byung-hoon, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea (Gwangju-si Gap, Gyeonggi Province), as of August 31 this year, there were a total of 425 landlords in Korea who failed to return jeonse deposits to tenants in two or more cases. The total amount of jeonse deposits not returned to tenants by these landlords was confirmed to be as high as 579.3491 billion won.

In particular, the landlord who embezzled the largest amount of jeonse deposits in Korea was Mr. A, who purchased 477 registered rental houses by engaging in gap speculation using tenants' deposits from September 2016. As of 2020, he had not returned deposits for a total of 284 households amounting to 57.669 billion won as of August this year. HUG made a subrogation payment of 57.177 billion won, but the amount recovered so far is only 153 million won, resulting in a recovery rate of just 0.3%.

The second place goes to Mr. B, who owned 591 registered rental houses as of 2020 and was nicknamed the "Villa King." He had not returned deposits for a total of 192 households amounting to 35.79925 billion won as of August this year. HUG made a subrogation payment of 34.43225 billion won, but the amount recovered was only 352.66 million won.

Meanwhile, the sisters D and E, protagonists of the "Three Sisters Gap Speculation Incident" reported in the media earlier this year, failed to return deposits amounting to 49.076 billion won to tenant households. They did not return deposits of 27.111 billion won and 21.865 billion won respectively. HUG made subrogation payments amounting to 44.416 billion won for households enrolled in the jeonse deposit return guarantee insurance as of the end of August this year.

Meanwhile, the number of bad landlords who failed to return tenants' jeonse deposits in two or more cases increased by 38.5% from 257 in August last year to 356 in April this year, and further increased by 65.4% year-on-year to 425 in August this year.

Also, the amount of jeonse deposit non-return incidents caused by bad landlords more than doubled from 242.438 billion won in August last year to 579.349 billion won in August this year. In particular, compared to August 2019, the amount of jeonse deposit non-return incidents by bad landlords increased more than 20 times.

Assemblyman So Byung-hoon said, "If the government does not impose any sanctions on bad landlords who do not return jeonse deposits, which are equivalent to tenants' entire assets, amounting to hundreds of billions of won, similar gap speculation damages will continue to occur in the market." He added, "To fundamentally solve the rapidly increasing jeonse deposit non-return incidents and prevent more victims in the future, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport needs to promptly disclose the list of 425 bad landlords."

The "Bad Landlord Disclosure System" is a system that transparently discloses the names of bad landlords who intentionally or habitually fail to return deposits to tenants after the lease contract expires, the addresses of the houses they own, and the fact that they have not returned deposits to other households. Assemblyman So Byung-hoon expects that the implementation of such a system will reduce the damage caused by jeonse deposit non-return incidents.

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