Yeonggwang-gun Wins First Lawsuit for Unjust Enrichment Refund on Private Land within Road Site

Completion of Acquisition Prescription and Recognition of Continuous Possession by Court, Victory Confirmed in All 3 Lawsuits

Yeonggwang-gun, Jeollanam-do announced on the 29th that after more than two years of legal battles, including appeals, it has secured final victories in all three cases by the end of November regarding claims for the return of unjust enrichment filed by private landowners within urban planning roads.

The roads in question were confirmed to have been established during the Japanese colonial period, and a significant portion of the land incorporated into the roads remains privately owned, leading to ongoing compensation demands and lawsuits from descendants.

Map of Yeonggwang-eup from 1910 to 1930 during the Japanese colonial period (National Geographic Information Institute).

Documents related to the lands incorporated into the roads were lost or destroyed during the Korean War (6.25), making it difficult to collect evidence, and until now, there had been no precedents of winning such lawsuits.

Taking this lawsuit as an opportunity, the county conducted a survey of private land status similar to the case land.

It was confirmed that there are many similar parcels in the one-way road section of Yeonggwang-eup, and if compensation were to be paid for all the land, it was estimated that a budget of over 3.5 billion KRW would be required, which would impose a significant financial burden on the county.

Accordingly, the responsible department held a special countermeasure meeting and made every effort to find ways to reduce the county’s financial burden through analysis of similar lawsuit precedents, field visits for case studies in other cities and counties, and legal consultations with advisory lawyers.

Yeonggwang-gun submitted evidence to the court, including grounds for road acquisition during the Japanese colonial period, newspaper articles from that time, and circumstances showing that the county did not use the land without permission, and actively argued that the statute of limitations for acquisition was completed and that there was no unauthorized occupation of private land. As a result, it was able to win all three recent lawsuits.

A county official stated, “As a result of actively responding to the lawsuits, the court recognized Yeonggwang-gun’s autonomous possession, which became a significant opportunity to prepare measures for responding to similar lawsuits in the future and prevented huge budget losses due to unnecessary compensation.”

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