Seoul City Establishes Regional Housing Association Information Disclosure System to Prevent Member Damage

Promotion of Information Disclosure through Comprehensive Maintenance Project Information
To Improve Haphazard and Inadequate Practices... Plans to Amend Related Laws and Ordinances

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] The Seoul Metropolitan Government has established an information disclosure management system to enhance the transparency of regional housing cooperatives' projects. It is also pushing for amendments to related laws and ordinances to mandate information disclosure through this system. This decision comes from the judgment that the opaque information disclosure, which has been conducted in a haphazard manner, is increasing the damage to cooperative members.

On the 7th, Seoul announced that it has equipped the system to transparently disclose information on regional housing cooperatives while launching the comprehensive redevelopment project portal called 'Jeongbi Saeop Jeongbo Mongttang' (Redevelopment Project Information All-in-One). 'Jeongbi Saeop Jeongbo Mongttang' is Seoul's redevelopment project management system that comprehensively covers all information related to redevelopment projects at a glance.

Regional housing cooperatives are projects where non-homeowners residing in the area and homeowners owning a single house with a floor area of 85㎡ or less form a cooperative to build new houses. Members purchase land and bear construction costs to develop directly. The promoters or executives of the cooperative must disclose related documents to members within 15 days after they are created or changed. Violations or forgery result in imprisonment of up to 1 year or 2 years, respectively, or fines up to 10 million KRW or 20 million KRW.

However, unlike redevelopment and reconstruction projects that have been mandatorily disclosing information through 'Jeongbi Saeop Jeongbo Mongttang,' regional housing cooperatives lacked a separate management system, so each cooperative individually disclosed information through cafes or websites. Because of this, information on regional housing cooperatives has been poorly managed, focusing on project promotion rather than key information that members are curious about, such as fund management, project progress, and contributions. Local districts also faced difficulties in managing and supervising cooperatives due to non-compliance with mandatory information disclosure and false or exaggerated advertisements.

Accordingly, the city has prepared a system that allows regional housing cooperatives to upload related information to 'Jeongbi Saeop Jeongbo Mongttang.' In the future, regional housing cooperatives will be able to open individual cooperative websites on the portal through local districts and upload information. Members can check information from recruitment announcements to contributions, fund execution performance, land ownership status, and audit reports, and can request missing information from the cooperative.

The city plans to investigate the actual conditions of regional housing cooperatives to establish the use of the portal.

At the same time, local districts will disclose the list of poorly managed cooperatives that failed to disclose information mandatorily or had illegal issues and strengthen penalties and other measures. Education and support to promote the use of the portal by cooperatives will also be provided.

Simultaneously, amendments to related laws and ordinances will be pursued to mandate regional housing cooperatives to disclose information through 'Jeongbi Saeop Jeongbo Mongttang,' similar to redevelopment and reconstruction projects.

Kim Seongbo, Director of the Housing Policy Office of Seoul, said, "With the introduction of the information disclosure procedure for regional housing cooperatives, we expect that members will be able to conveniently and easily check and request information about the cooperative." He added, "In particular, we will strengthen the role of the information disclosure hub to prevent innocent parties from suffering due to false or exaggerated advertisements and opaque fund execution."