"Be Careful When Joining Local Housing Cooperatives"...Gwanak-gu Makes Every Effort to Prevent Resident Damage from Local Housing Cooperatives

Gwanak-gu Launches Full-Scale Effort to Protect Residents from Frequent Disputes and Lawsuits Due to Land Purchase Delays, Project Stagnation, and Prolonged Business Promotion, Including System Improvement Proposals and Enhanced Publicity

Gwanak-gu (District Mayor Park Jun-hee) is making every effort to protect residents from damages caused by local housing cooperatives.

Currently, although the local housing cooperative system has introduced a recruitment reporting (public recruitment) system to prevent damages at the member recruitment stage, damages to members are still occurring in various places.

This is because many projects focus primarily on indiscriminate member recruitment and accumulation of cooperative fees rather than actual project implementation such as land acquisition after obtaining approval for member recruitment reporting.

As a result, frequent disputes and lawsuits occur due to delays and stagnation in land acquisition and prolonged project implementation. Ultimately, many projects end in rehabilitation or bankruptcy, causing serious financial damage to members. Recently, concerns have been continuously raised that the problem will worsen as similar cooperatives join in.

In response, the district has recognized the seriousness of resident damages and is focusing on measures to prevent the spread of damages caused by local housing cooperatives and to prevent additional damages.

First, the district has proposed institutional improvements to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and relevant departments of Seoul City to resolve chronic problems of local housing cooperatives. The proposals include ▲strengthening recruitment reporting requirements (additional 15% ownership secured) ▲using verification forms when securing rights ▲introducing ex officio cancellation of projects that are impossible to proceed due to bankruptcy, etc., taking the lead in protecting residents.

Additionally, the district plans to further expand and strengthen its promotional activities conducted so far. These include ▲frequent production and posting of banners ▲focused promotional activities such as producing and distributing Gwanak-type damage prevention leaflets.

District Mayor Park Jun-hee said, “Although damages from local housing cooperative projects continue nationwide, we will continue to devote all efforts to preparing measures to prevent physical and mental damages to district residents.”