Last October, 43-year-old Kim Mo died at a motel in Jongno, Seoul.
It is said that Kim had chronic diseases such as diabetes, and that the cause of death was a chronic disease.
Mr. Kim is a person called the so-called 'villa king' because he owns more than 1,000 multi-family houses and villas in Seoul and the metropolitan area.
However, people question how he, who suffers from intellectual disability, was able to own so many houses.
A specific name is sometimes mentioned behind it, but there are many rumors that Mr. Kim is the so-called 'pants boss'.
The police are not unaware of the various suspicions surrounding Kim's death, so they are conducting an investigation into the alleged crime.
Public suspicions and questions surrounding Mr. Kim's death will gradually be resolved, but apart from that, unresolved issues remain.
It is a story about the tenants who live in the numerous houses owned by Mr. Kim and the deposit on the deposit that has not been returned.
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Stopped contacting me because I have no money... News of the late death
Kim Byung-jin lives in a villa in Namdong-gu, Incheon.
In September 2020, while looking for a house for his newlyweds, he saw the villa he currently lives in for sale.
The inside of the house was clean, and the deposit was less than 200 million won, so there was no great difficulty in raising funds when taking out a loan.
He wrote a contract with the landlord, and most of the jeonse money was raised through a guaranteed jeonse loan for newlyweds from the Housing City Guarantee Corporation (HUG).
Along with the loan, he also signed up for deposit return guarantee insurance.
It is a safe insurance policy in case the deposit is not returned.
From security loans to insurance.
I thought it was safe enough.
On October 5th, I moved into the newlyweds' house that I signed a contract with.
However, on October 6, the day after the move, the landlord changed from Mr. Jeong to someone else.
The new owner was Mr. Kim.
This is Mr. Kim, the 'Villa King'.
Of course, Mr. Kim Byung-jin had no idea who the new owner was.
This spring, five months before his contract expired, Kim Byung-jin texted the landlord.
This is to inform in advance that there is a plan to move before maturity.
However, the landlord demanded that if he wanted to get his deposit back, he would directly put the property up for sale, saying, "I can't do it because my credit is blocked," and "I don't have money, so do it yourself."
No phone calls were ever received.
Feeling uneasy, I sent a proof of contents to the landlord and took off the certified copy of the register.
At the time of the contract, the clean copy of the register had three cases of seizure and provisional seizure.
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In the end, Mr. Kim Byung-jin, who did not receive the deposit money back until the maturity date, applied for a leasehold registration order.
Leasehold registration is to record the fact that the tenant has the right to receive the deposit in the certified copy of the register so that the tenant can maintain 'resistance' to the existing house in case the tenant has to move to another house without getting the deposit back.
Legally, the tenant can apply for the leasehold registration order alone without the consent of the landlord, that is, the owner, and after confirming the leasehold registration approval, Mr. Kim applied for the guarantee to the Housing City Guarantee Corporation according to the procedure.
However, the warranty was not fulfilled.
Instead, the Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation sent a document to Mr. Kim Byung-jin.
It was something that required further examination.
It is part of the dossier that mentions additional screening.
In the event that the lessor dies between the date of application for the lease registration order and the date of registration of the lease registration, additional review is underway to determine whether the lease registration is effective. In addition, in accordance with Article 9 of the Terms and Conditions for Issuance of Jeonse Safe Loan Guarantee, the performance of the guarantee obligation is postponed until the relevant additional examination is completed... (Housing City Guarantee Corporation Seoul Western Management Center)
Regarding this part, Mr. Kim Byung-jin said the following.
Kim Byung-jin applied for a lease registration order before the landlord died.
By this time, a relationship of rights is established between Mr. Kim Byung-jin and the landlord.
However, by the time registration was decided, the landlord had already died.
Because of this, the Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation explained that additional screening was needed as the rights relationship became ambiguous.
Mr. Kim Byung-jin raised an objection about why additional examination was necessary for the subject matter for which rights had already been formed, but it was not accepted, and more than a month has passed in the state of additional examination.
"I'm in a position to become a credit delinquent in my 30s"
The story of another victim in her 30s who signed a charter contract around the same time is more pitiful.
In May 2020, Mo Lee (pseudonym) rented a villa in Gangbuk-gu, Seoul.
Likewise, shortly after the contract, the landlord changed to 'Villa King' Mr. Kim.
He contacted Mr. Kim, who did not return the deposit even after the contract expired, and he replied that he had bad credit and could not do anything.
Mr. Lee, who did not get his deposit back, also applied for the performance of the guarantee to the Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation.
But again the warranty was not fulfilled.
The Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation requested data to prove that it communicated with the landlord during the charter contract period.
However, the landlord is already dead.
Mr. Lee could not submit any data to the Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation.
After the 23rd of this month, Mr. Lee may become a credit delinquent due to overdue loans.
He urgently asked the bank to extend the loan, but was refused.
Currently, it is impossible to fulfill the guarantee of the Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation, so there is no way to repay the jeonse loan.
Mr. Lee said:
Mr. Lee (pseudonym), a victim of charter fraud, said,
"The Housing City Guarantee Corporation has no other way than to inherit or to appoint a property manager and go through the process again." I said ‘Stop’. This is not the first time such a large-scale accident has occurred, and I don’t understand why the charter process for victims has not been accurately established.”
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How much money can I get my deposit back?
Like the two, the number of Internet cafe members who were victims of charter fraud by Mr. Kim now exceeds 500.
The actual number of victims is estimated to be much higher than this.
Among the tenants who have signed a lease contract with Mr. Kim, about 500 are subscribers to the Housing City Guarantee Corporation’s guarantee insurance.
About 200 of them have not received their deposit back after the contract expires.
Tenants are terrified of paying hundreds of thousands of won in loan interest every month, and the Housing City Guarantee Corporation, which is in charge of subrogation, criticizes that it is procrastinating while ignoring the difficult situation of the tenants.
The Housing City Guarantee Corporation protests as follows.
In order to fulfill the guarantee, the procedure requires that Kim's heir be determined first.
The civil law stipulates the right to inherit. The first priority for inheritance is spouse and children, the second priority is spouse and parents, the third priority is siblings, and the fourth priority is collateral blood relatives within the fourth degree of relationship.
Kim, who died, has no spouse or children.
So, the parents of Mr. Kim, who is currently in second place, must decide whether to inherit.
However, to date, Kim's parents have not made an inheritance decision.
Moreover, the chances of parents inheriting are very low.
Since there are so many victims and the issue is of high national interest, the Housing City Guarantee Corporation directly visited the parents and recommended inheritance, but Kim's parents are saying, "Do not contact me anymore," and are avoiding it.
If the parents renounce the inheritance, the court appoints an administrator of the estate, and this administrator inherits the status of the legal heir.
Once the manager of the inherited property is determined, the tenants who have subscribed to the guarantee insurance can go through contract termination procedures and receive the guarantee.
However, it takes at least 6 months or more for an inherited property manager to be appointed.
It means that you have to endure for a longer time than you have endured so far.
Tenants who do not subscribe to guarantee insurance have to go through a more difficult process.
After the real estate goes to auction, you have to get the money back from the auction winning price, but if there is a mortgage right set as a priority, the ranking is pushed back.
After taking it all in front of you, how much money will you have left?
Mr. Kim, who died, was in arrears of more than 6 billion won in final real estate tax alone, and his debt was known to be considerable.
If the country and the bank first take out overdue taxes and debts, it is highly likely that the money that tenants who have not received back the jeonse deposit of up to 300 million won will have in their hands.
What is the use of postmortem visits?
The government is not sitting idle in this situation.
The government recently announced countermeasures against charter fraud one after another, and Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong posted a post on Facebook last Sunday.
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Tenants also want to believe the minister's words and not worry.
But it's easier said than done.
In the case of the extension of the jeonse loan, negotiations with the bank have not yet been finalized, so there are not a few cases where the actual application for extension of the loan is blocked.
The charter damage support center also states that tenants who have purchased guarantee insurance are excluded from support.
Like the previous victims of jeonse fraud, if you have insurance, you cannot get help.
The Housing and Urban Fund budget support is only a slightly lower loan interest rate, and it is only an after-effects measure that is still burdensome in that victims of jeonse fraud have to pay their own money.
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Additional measures were also taken to support victims of charter fraud by creating a “joint legal support TF” between the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Justice.
It is expected that TF will come up with a plan to advance the delayed deposit return, but it is still far from sufficient.
Isn’t it urgent to create a real estate transaction structure that prevents charter fraud from occurring in the first place?
If an individual can hold more than 1,000 real estate, and an abnormal structure in which a speculator who is in arrears of billions of won can buy real estate one after another is left untouched, and only a remedy for damage is presented, what should I say, not 'back book'? I don't know what to do.