Why did 230,000 households pay “0 won” amidst soaring heating prices last winter?

An electric meter. Yonhap News Archives

Despite the hike in heating costs last winter, nearly 230,000 households paid nothing because the heating meters in their apartments broke down.

On October 12, according to the information that the office of Democratic Party of Korea legislator Park Sang-hyuk of the parliamentary Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee received from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, it was confirmed that there were 227,710 apartments that paid “0 won” in heating costs for a month or longer from last November to February this year. The apartments accounted for 9.6% of the total 2,364,354 units in their complexes.

Among the households that did not pay for heating, 12% or 27,265 households were never charged for heating because of problems with the heating meter. Authorities also confirmed 29 cases where people intentionally damaged the gauge to avoid paying their heating bill.

The households that escaped paying for heating in this way were either reported to the police or were charged the same amount as the highest heating bill in the same building. Among the apartments that were not charged for heating 68.0% (154,779) did not use any heating.

There were 2.9% (6,668) of apartments that were categorized as “miscellaneous” because authorities could not identify why their heating bill ended up as 0 won. These households, which resided in the apartment complexes in question, used heating, and there was nothing wrong with their heating meter, but their heating bill was still 0 won.

A regional analysis showed that of the households that were not charged for heating 52.3% or 119,133 households resided in Gyeonggi-do, followed by Seoul with 17.5%.

The cases where heating bills were not charged due to broken meters were also concentrated in Gyeonggi with 55.9% of the total cases and Seoul with 17.1%.

However, sixteen of the twenty-nine cases where residents broke the meter on purpose occurred in Seoul. The capital city was followed by Sejong (8), Gyeonggi (4), and Gyeongsangnam-do (1).

Last winter, energy prices rose amid a cold wave, pushing heating costs up significantly. Local governments worked to provide emergency support for heating expenses to vulnerable people. In a parliamentary questioning in February, lawmakers and government officials engaged in an argument over the soaring price of heating.

Legislator Park Sang-hyuk said, “The land ministry and local governments must work to better manage heating meters and improve related facilities to prevent conflicts between apartment residents and to improve the efficiency in apartment management.”