Relaxation of Eligibility for Happy Housing Tenants... Reapplication Restrictions Also Abolished

In the future, residents of Happy Housing will be able to continue living in Happy Housing even if their eligibility category changes from basic livelihood security recipients to youth or newlyweds. Additionally, regulations will be relaxed to allow existing Happy Housing residents to freely reapply and move to other Happy Housing units.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 18th that it will publicly notify the amendment to the "Enforcement Rules of the Special Act on Public Housing," which includes these changes, starting from the 19th. The public notification period will last until the 29th of next month, and after consultations with related agencies and review by the Ministry of Government Legislation, the amendment is expected to be implemented in December.

According to the amendment, the scope of allowable category changes for Happy Housing residents will be expanded. Currently, residents are only permitted to renew their contracts and continue living if their category changes from 'university student → youth or newlywed (single-parent family)' or 'youth → newlywed (single-parent family)'.

However, going forward, residents will be fully allowed to continue living without eviction if their category changes to 'newlywed → youth', 'recipient → youth or newlywed', or 'newlywed or recipient → elderly', provided they meet the eligibility criteria.

Also, while the maximum residence period including previous residence is limited to 10 years upon category change, the residence period for the new category will be applied anew from the time of the category change contract.

Happy Housing currently restricts moving to another Happy Housing unit within the same category in principle, allowing reapplication only in unavoidable cases such as job or university changes, but from now on, residents will be able to freely reapply and relocate.

However, if a resident is selected again for another Happy Housing unit within the same category, the maximum residence period including previous residence will be applied.

Industrial complex-type Happy Housing has had strict eligibility criteria regarding income and assets when supplied to resident companies or educational and research institutions, which has hindered smooth supply, but going forward, eligibility criteria for remaining industrial complex-type Happy Housing units will be relaxed.

The scope of household members will also be improved. Currently, when applying for public rental housing, consent from household members is required to verify eligibility such as income and assets, making it difficult to apply in cases such as divorce or disappearance where consent is hard to obtain.

Therefore, the government has allowed that if, after review, it is recognized that household members live separately for livelihood or housing reasons, they can be excluded from the household members.

Kim Hongmok, Director of Housing Welfare Policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said, "With this amendment, we expect public rental housing residents to be able to live stably despite changes in their circumstances."