A Landlord Worse than the “Villa King” Kim Cheated Tenants out of 64.6 Billion Won

Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong reviews the status of damages that lessees experienced in connection with the villa king Kim at a briefing on the jeonse deposit losses for leaseholders at the FKI Tower in Yeouido, Seoul on December 22. Yonhap News

There were malicious landlords who cheated tenants out of more jeonse (a lease for a one-time lump-sum deposit) deposits than Kim (Gim), the “villa king” who recently died. The Korea Housing and Urban Guarantee Co. (HUG) keeps a list of homeowners in debt with leases on multiple homes who require special attention. The top thirty landlords on the list failed to return deposits amounting to 758.4 billion won, of which HUG reimbursed more than 90%.

According to the information that Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Sang-hyuk of the parliamentary Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee received from HUG on December 26, as of the end of November, lessees involved in 171 contracts, who had their deposits insured, did not receive their jeonse deposits back from the villa king, Kim. In other words, 171 leaseholders failed to get their deposits back when the lease expired. Among them 91 cases were linked to homes owned by a company that Kim established and the other 80 were linked to homes that Kim personally owned.

HUG returned a total of 25.4 billion won, the deposits of 133 contracts by November. But Kim died while the other 38 cases were being processed, and at present the process has been suspended. Kim did not return deposits amounting to 33.4 billion won.

However, there are still 440 tenants, subscribers of the HUG guarantee insurance, whose leases have yet to expire. Now that Kim is dead, they too will have trouble getting their deposits back. What’s more, there are many tenants whose deposits are not insured, and it is unclear as to how the state can help them minimize their losses.

Tenants who were cheated out of their jeonse deposits by Kim will hold a press conference in Sejong-si on December 27 and urge the government for a solution. Bae So-hyeon, the representative of the lessees who suffered losses, said, “After a meeting organized by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on December 22, there was some progress for those who subscribed to the HUG return guarantee insurance, but things are still unclear for the other victims.” She further said, “We plan to hold a press conference and rally to urge the government to resolve the problem for other victims who lie outside the boundary of the law.”

Meanwhile, it turns out that there are many more malevolent landlords who failed to return jeonse deposits amounting to more than that owed by Kim, the villa king.

Among the people who leased out their property but did not return the jeonse deposits when the lease expired, HUG tracks those for whom it has had to repay the jeonse deposit for three or more times. HUG then keeps a list of those requiring special attention--homeowners that HUG has lost contact with or who has failed to repay a single won of the guarantee debt in the past year.

The property owner on the list who did not return the largest amount of deposits was Bak, with 64.6 billion won of unpaid deposits in connection to 293 lease contracts. He was followed by Jeong, who did not return deposits of 60 billion won to tenants related to 254 contracts, Yi with 58.1 billion won (286 leases), and Gim with 53.3 billion won (228 leases). The villa king Kim ranked eighth according to the amount of deposits he failed to return.

The top thirty malicious landlords on the list failed to return deposits of 3,630 contracts amounting to 758.4 billion won. Among them, HUG paid 684.2 billion won, 90.2% of the deposits. When we take into account the lease contracts with these fraudulent homeowners that were not insured by the jeonse deposit return guarantee insurance, the amount of damage is likely to grow.

The area with the greatest number of homes owned by these evil-minded homeowners was Hwagok-dong in Gangseo-gu, Seoul. The homeowners failed to return the deposits for 763 leases in this area. The villa king Kim also owned multiple homes (multiplex homes referred to as villas in Korea) in this area. The lessors did not return the deposits of more than 100 leases in Sinwol-dong, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul (157 cases), Bupyeong-dong, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon (189 cases), and Gwangju, Jeollanam-do (131) as well.