Is the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Imposing Exam Fees on Appraisal Exam Candidates Who Did Not Attend?

Assemblyman Jin Seong-jun Imposes 53.72 Million KRW Exam Fees on 2,686 Appraisal Exam Candidates This Year
"Unfair Practice for Candidates Who Fail the 1st Exam to Pay for the 2nd Exam Fee"

This year, among the candidates who registered for the Certified Real Estate Appraiser exam, it has been claimed that 2,686 individuals overpaid a total of approximately 53.72 million KRW in exam fees.

On the 21st, Jin Seong-jun, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, analyzed the 'Certified Real Estate Appraiser Exam Fee Payment Status' data submitted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. According to the analysis, the 2,686 overpayers consist of 2,005 candidates who failed the first exam and did not take the second exam, and 681 candidates who either passed the first exam last year or were exempted from the first exam this year due to experience.

These candidates paid a combined fee of 107.44 million KRW for the integrated first and second exams at the time of registration in January this year (40,000 KRW per person). Jin’s office explained that if the fees for the first and second exams were split evenly, it is estimated that about 53.72 million KRW was overpaid for exams they did not take.

In this regard, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission recommended the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in October last year through an official letter that “the fees for the national professional qualification exams, which are divided into first and second parts, should not be collected all at once but separately by each part, and that this should be implemented by October this year.”

The exam fees for the Certified Real Estate Appraiser exam are stipulated in Article 13 of the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Real Estate Appraisal and Certified Real Estate Appraisers, and this is an administrative measure that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport can improve on its own without legislative amendments by the National Assembly.

The Ministry responded, “We are currently promoting system improvements aiming for implementation in January next year, after preparing a revision draft in August, public notice in September, review by the Ministry of Government Legislation in November, and approval by the Deputy Prime Minister and Cabinet meeting in December,” adding, “Specific details such as the amount for separate collection have not yet been decided.”

The problem, according to Jin’s office, is that if the system is implemented as planned by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport starting January next year, candidates taking the exam next year are likely to be excluded from the policy benefits.

Since the announcement of the Certified Real Estate Appraiser exam is made at the end of the previous year (for this year’s exam, the announcement was made on December 30 of last year), candidates for next year’s exam will take the exam under the current system. Therefore, the improved system will apply starting with the 2023 exam candidates.

When submitting the ‘Implementation Performance by Unit Task’ to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission in July, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport projected that the system improvement would provide “policy benefits to candidates (2,005 in 2021) who failed the first exam but paid the fees for the second exam due to integrated fee collection.”

Jin emphasized, “It is an unreasonable practice to collect the exam fees all at once while conducting the Certified Real Estate Appraiser exam in two parts. The system improvement must be completed before the exam announcement in December this year so that candidates do not have to pay for exams they will not take.”