No More Hidden Fees and Corruption... See Our Apartment Management Fees at a Glance

'Announcement of the "Advanced Plan for the Apartment Management Information System (K-apt)"
Won Hee-ryong: "Maintenance fees, the second monthly rent... We will strengthen transparency"'

Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

Apartment management fees can now be compared at a glance with other complexes on a map. Additionally, project costs required for facility replacement and repairs can also be easily compared.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Real Estate Board announced the "Apartment Management Information System (K-apt) Advancement Plan" on the 4th to enhance transparency in apartment management.

First, the early warning system for management fee corruption will be further activated. Utilizing the early warning system for management fee corruption, which has been in pilot operation since January, they plan to establish a feedback system including anomaly analysis and case sharing to increase the utilization of the system by local governments nationwide.

Furthermore, the existing electronic bidding system, which supported simple bidding tasks for facility replacement, repairs, and maintenance services, will add a "project cost comparison" feature to prevent collusion among companies and strengthen residents' monitoring capabilities. This will include company-by-company comparison functions for similar construction projects and project cost comparison functions by construction type.

The function to compare management fees with nearby complexes will also be improved. Based on a Geographic Information System (GIS), users will be able to intuitively check management fees among similar complexes on an online map.

On this day, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Real Estate Board held a meeting at the Western Housing and Urban Finance Center of the Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation with representatives from the Youth Foundation, real estate portal operators, and the Ministry of Justice to discuss the experiences and concerns of the younger generation regarding management fees, as well as the private sector utilization of public data related to management fees.

At the meeting, alongside presentations on private sector utilization cases of public data such as K-apt’s management fee information, discussions were held on "strengthening public-private cooperation to enhance management fee transparency," including expanding public data disclosure.

Currently, only some real estate portal sites use public data provided by K-apt to offer monthly management fee information, while other sites provide only summer, winter, and annual average management fee information.

Accordingly, they agreed to continue consultations with portal site operators so that housing demanders can receive more detailed management fee information. Along with this, they plan to review the use of private sector-held information in the public sector.

Minister Won Hee-ryong of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport stated, "If management fees, which are considered a second monthly rent, are operated opaquely, the housing burden on vulnerable groups such as the younger generation will increase further." He added, "To increase transparency in management fees and eliminate blind spots in management, it is necessary to strengthen management and supervision through various institutional improvements such as expanding disclosure of management fee information, establishing preemptive measures against management fee corruption, conducting joint inspections by the government and local governments, and also to enhance collaboration with the private sector."

Minister Won also added that he plans to announce "improvement measures for management fee transparency and elimination of blind spots" in October.