Addition of Maintenance Fee Item in Standard Commercial Lease Agreement
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Justice will add a maintenance fee section to the standard contract form for commercial building lease agreements to prevent landlords from 'slyly' raising maintenance fees. This measure aims to stop cases where landlords excessively increase maintenance fees instead of raising the tenant's deposit by more than 5%, which is prohibited.
Additional maintenance fee items added to the revised standard contract. [Data provided by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport]
On the 8th, the Ministry of Land and the Ministry of Justice announced that they have revised the standard contract form for commercial building leases to prevent such sly increases in maintenance fees. The revised form includes a maintenance fee section. For fixed maintenance fees of 100,000 KRW or more per month, detailed amounts must be specified for each item such as water charges, electricity charges, and general management fees. If the maintenance fee is not fixed, the maintenance fee items and calculation methods must be described. If there are utility charges paid directly by the tenant, these must also be listed in the maintenance fee section.
According to the Ministry of Land, there have been cases where some landlords excessively raise maintenance fees during commercial building lease agreements, causing harm to tenants. Under the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act, landlords cannot increase the tenant's deposit by more than 5%, but to circumvent this restriction, the sly practice of raising maintenance fees has become widespread. In particular, the existing standard contract form for commercial building leases did not include a maintenance fee section, so tenants could not know the detailed contents even if landlords raised maintenance fees.
The Presidential Office selected and announced on April 9 last year the measure to 'establish a plan to prevent arbitrary increases in maintenance fees by commercial building landlords' as a 'public proposal policy task' after discussions by a joint civil-government review committee on public proposals submitted through the National Petition System. Since then, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Land have consulted with related organizations such as the Small Enterprise and Market Service and the Korea Real Estate Board to review improvement measures and added maintenance fee details to the standard contract form for commercial building leases.
However, the use of this standard contract form is recommended but not mandatory. A Ministry of Land official said, "Just like residential lease contracts, even if there is a standard contract form for commercial building leases, if the landlord and tenant agree on contract terms, there can be no restrictions on the format," adding, "Since a contract is what the landlord and tenant agree upon regardless of format, it is difficult to regulate the format."
The Ministry of Land and the Ministry of Justice plan to actively promote the revised standard contract form so that it is widely used in actual commercial building lease processes and will continue to pursue institutional improvements to prevent tenants from suffering unfair damage.
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