The housing rental scams affecting many South Korean people are highly likely to continue in 2024. 

About 2,500 people in Incheon and about 500 in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, are about to lose the entire lump sum they deposited to rent homes.

Land Minister Won Hee-ryong emphasized the importance of acting on this to prevent further problems. 

Won  spoke against the former Moon Jae-in administration, in which the housing market began to overheat. 

Overheated housing market caused the price of the actual house and the amount of money needed for a “jeonse” contract that lasted for at least two years to become unbalanced. 

Jeonse was meant to be lower than the price of the actual property.

Jeonse has been regarded as a way for tenants to pay money when they rent a property and receive the same amount back from their landlords when they move out after at least two years. 

Jeonse is considered more affordable than paying monthly rent, making it a more popular choice. 

The alleged  scammers have become landlords of several buildings by borrowing money to buy properties. 

These scammers tricked tenants into renting properties with something that seemed like a standard contract. 

Then, they would not return the money to the tenants even if they could.

When something like this happens, the house would be sold off to someone else.

In such a case, instead of the tenant who got scammed, the person who bought the house would have to return the money that the scammer borrowed from the bank. 

The new landlord would then have the power  to kick the tenant who was scammed out of the house. 

After three tenants who were victims of these scammers killed themselves, the government recently decided to suspend these auctions immediately. 

Won repeated his idea of organizations supported by the government buying homes in which people who had been scammed lived. 

Since the South Korean rules prevent purchase money going directly to the victims, Won urged organizations to buy the homes of tenants who have fallen victim to these scams. . 

Won said that the decision would only be able to be made with approval from the public since it would use up a tremendous amount of tax money. 

The purchase would require the organizations to partially, or even entirely, guarantee the ‘jeonse’ deposits of all the tenants with a wish that the scammers would repay the money later. 

A meeting Won attended at the Korean Bar Association, along with many licensed South Korean attorneys, was mainly about how to help the victims of the ‘jeonse’ rental scams in both affordable and legal ways. 

The National Assembly agreed to give the victims of the housing scams special rights to purchase the home they reside in after the cost has been determined at the auction. 

Won also said that the government has taken into consideration the option of adjusting and easing the banking regulations for such victims to borrow money to buy their houses back. 

Yuin Kim
Grade 7
Yongsan International School of Seoul