Seoul District Officer Who Found Land for the City... Still Continues Land Searching These Days

Seongbuk-gu Office Team Leader Son Ilyoung "Similar Cases May Occur... Investigating from Time to Time"

Son Ilyoung, head of the cadastral management team at Seongbuk District Office, is explaining to reporters about the Bomun-dong public land that was almost transferred to private ownership. (Photo by Seongbuk District Office)

“I am constantly looking for more land like this whenever I have time during work. If similar cases are found under comparable conditions, I plan to request cooperation from the Seoul Metropolitan Government and consider sharing the information with other district offices.”

Son Ilyeong, a senior official (Chief of the Cadastral Management Team) working at Seongbuk District Office in Seoul, gained fame last month after discovering 826㎡ of land in Seoul (with an official land price of approximately 960 million KRW) that had been hidden for 48 years and successfully restored it as Seoul city property.

The land was originally a road acquired and compensated by Seoul city in the past, but due to an administrative error, it was never registered, and the land almost reverted to the descendants of the original owner from 1975 before the acquisition. Although it could have been overlooked, this case was recovered through the persistent efforts of a public official.

Moreover, the area including this land is a triple transit station zone and recently has seen active promotion of Moa Housing projects, making it a region where land prices could soar. For this achievement, Team Leader Son was selected as an outstanding public official for proactive administration in Seongbuk District last month.

On the 17th, Team Leader Son said, “I am reviewing the land ownership status in the boundary areas of Seongbuk District where ownership was transferred between local governments due to past administrative district changes, thinking that similar cases might exist.” Based on his recent experience handling this case, he believes there could be other similar instances.

The land Son recovered was formerly a road in Sinseol-dong, Dongdaemun District (1,338㎡), which was divided into Jongno District’s Sungin-dong (512㎡) and Seongbuk District’s Bomun-dong (826㎡) during the 1975 administrative district reorganization. However, the registration for Bomun-dong was omitted, leaving the land ownership unclear.

The land register still listed the name of Mr. A, who had been compensated by Seoul city for this land. Since there was no real estate registration, Mr. A’s grandson discovered the land through a “search for ancestral land” and demanded ownership transfer registration, eventually filing a lawsuit against the state.

Son, who was a team member at the time, personally handled the lawsuit starting in October 2021 and began to suspect that this land might correspond to a road acquired by Seoul city. Starting from this suspicion, he uncovered the facts within three months and, after about a year, succeeded in having the lawsuit filed by Mr. A’s descendants against the state withdrawn.

Son said, “Protecting the nation’s property is something public officials should do, but realistically, it involves many difficulties, and uncovering past records is not easy.” He added, “As time passes, it becomes even harder to reveal the truth, so we cannot just give up because it is not our assigned task.”

He also expressed gratitude, saying, “The Seoul Metropolitan Archives greatly helped by allowing direct access to the records, which enabled us to find the land compensation receipt issued to the landowner by Seoul city over 50 years ago.” He also thanked the Seongbuk District Office for their careful opinions and the Seoul Northern District Court Registry Office, which cooperated with the work at the time.”