Promotion of 'Real Estate Electronic Registration Service' That Does Not Require Submission of Seal Certificate

Ministry of the Interior and Safety Signs MOU with 2025 Goal

From January 2025, when applying for electronic real estate registration, applicants will no longer need to submit a certificate of seal impression to verify their identity. Instead, the registrar will be able to confirm the seal impression information through the electronic network and process the registration tasks.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 29th that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Supreme Court’s Judicial Administration Office at the Supreme Court to share seal impression register information by linking the Seal Impression Information System and the Future Registration System. Through this agreement, both institutions plan to complete the system linkage by August 2024, conduct a four-month pilot service, and launch the nationwide service starting January 2025.

To this end, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety will provide the Judicial Administration Office with seal impression register information such as seal impression, name, resident registration number, and address, and the Judicial Administration Office has agreed to develop a linkage function for the seal impression register information during the construction of the Future Registration System.

The certificate of seal impression system, introduced in 1914 during the Japanese colonial period, has been used as a means to verify the applicant’s intent in various transactions by having administrative agencies certify the seal impression registered by the individual. However, obtaining the certificate required visiting the local community service center in person, which was inconvenient.

As of the end of December last year, it was estimated that 40.97 million citizens had registered seal impressions, and the number of certificates of seal impression issued in 2022 reached 30.75 million.

Once the service is launched, when applying for electronic real estate registration, applicants will only need to consent to the registrar accessing the seal impression register information without submitting the certificate of seal impression, which is expected to significantly save time and costs associated with issuing and submitting the certificate.

Going forward, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to continue discussions with the financial sector to ensure that when applying for electronic real estate registration, financial institutions do not require certificates of seal impression for mortgage registration and other purposes during collateral loan applications. Meanwhile, the Judicial Administration Office plans to closely communicate with the Korean Bar Association and the Korean Judicial Scrivener Association to promote electronic applications.

Minister of the Interior and Safety Sang-min Lee stated, “The basic principle of the Digital Platform Government is ‘Once Only,’ meaning that government agencies do not ask citizens for information they already possess when providing public services.” He added, “Taking this opportunity to link the Seal Impression Information System and the Future Registration System, we will strengthen cooperation between the executive and judicial branches to resolve inconveniences in citizens’ daily lives.”

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