Starting in the second half of this year, before signing a jeonse lease, people will be able to check in one place risk factors for jeonse fraud, such as whether there are senior-ranking deposits or mortgage rights on the dwelling, and whether the landlord has delinquent taxes.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on the 18th that it held a meeting with several related agencies to closely review the progress and future plans of the "jeonse fraud prevention measures" announced on Mar. 3.
Chaired by Kim Ei-tak, the first Vice Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), the meeting in Seoul was attended by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Financial Services Commission, the National Tax Service, the National Court Administration, as well as the Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG), Korea Real Estate Board (REB), and Korea Credit Information Services.
According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), it has been difficult for prospective tenants to verify the seniority of rights on the rental dwelling they plan to contract for. They had to obtain the landlord's consent and visit multiple government offices one by one, and even if they painstakingly gathered all the documents, it was not easy for the general public to analyze the tangled rights and determine the risk.
To resolve these inconveniences, the government decided to integrate the information networks of each ministry, including certified copies of the real estate register, the status of fixed-date stamps, and records of move-in registrations. Based on this, it is prioritizing the establishment of a linked system that analyzes and provides senior rights, while also moving ahead with measures to make a tenant's opposing power take effect immediately rather than the day after the contract and to strengthen licensed real estate agents' duty to explain.
To that end, a joint task force (TF) involving 15 departments across nine agencies is in operation, leading technical and institutional improvements. The task force has decided to consolidate a total of 57 types of administrative data, including the real estate register, building ledger, and move-in household confirmation, as well as information on national and local government tax delinquencies and credit information, and has begun full-fledged system consolidation work.
The new service is scheduled to debut in September through the Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation's safe jeonse application (app). In this app, after checking whether the building is an illegal structure and assessing whether the deposit amount is appropriate compared with surrounding market prices, the risk levels of the dwelling and the landlord will be displayed in three grades—"safe, caution, danger"—so the public can easily understand them. However, to check the landlord's delinquent amounts or credit status, the landlord's consent is required.
The government is forming an advisory group of actual users, such as young people and newlyweds, and information technology experts to focus on improving user convenience.
Institutional improvements and legal amendments are also gaining speed. Once the amendment to the Housing Lease Protection Act to improve the timing of when a tenant's opposing power takes effect is completed, a precision comparison system will be introduced to meticulously cross-check changes in registry rights and the order of opposing power occurrence down to the hour, minute, and second.
The government plans to go beyond this safe jeonse app update and expand public-private cooperation so that these data can be freely used on private platforms widely used by the public, such as Dabang, ZIGBANG CO., KB Real Estate, and Naver Pay Real Estate.
Vice Minister Kim said, "Jeonse fraud, a social disaster, can be significantly reduced simply by properly checking senior rights and avoiding risks," adding, "We will consolidate information scattered across administrative networks into usable information for people in actual contracting processes, and the government will see this through so tenants can sign with peace of mind."