Second Half Year Move-in for 6,710 Households
Construction Quality and Facility Safety Inspection
Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province is launching a special inspection of apartments scheduled for occupancy within the year. This measure comes in response to a series of large-scale defect controversies in apartments about to be occupied in regions such as Jeonnam and Daegu.
On the 22nd, Yongin City announced that it will conduct a special inspection by the 21st of next month to check the construction quality and facility safety status of 6,710 households across eight apartment complexes scheduled for occupancy in the second half of this year.
Yongin City is launching a special inspection targeting apartment complexes scheduled for occupancy in the second half of the year amid recent controversies over construction defects. Experts are conducting on-site inspections as part of the multi-family housing quality check carried out by Yongin City last year. [Photo by Yongin City]
The city explained that this special inspection aims to proactively prevent poor construction and ensure safety through joint expert inspections before prospective residents verify any defects, thereby reducing the possibility of disputes arising from defects.
In fact, in Muan, Jeonnam, a large number of defect reports?amounting to 60,000 cases?were filed for the H apartment complex about to be occupied, citing issues such as tilted exterior and interior walls, slanted floors, and warped concrete frames, which fueled controversy over poor construction. In Daegu, a post appeared on an online community claiming that the construction company carried out repair work by cutting stairs to adjust the height between floors of the emergency staircase just before occupancy.
The city stated that since most apartments involved in defect controversies are only found to have problems during the site visits by prospective residents just before completion, causing public concern, they decided to conduct special inspections at the local government level to fundamentally prevent such incidents.
The city also added that although the Housing Act allows prospective residents to visit the housing site for at least two days up to 45 days before the designated move-in period to inspect the construction status, visual inspections by non-expert prospective residents have limitations, so expert inspections will be supported.
The special inspection team consists of nine members: five city officials, two construction field technicians from the Yongin City Apartment Quality Inspection Team, and two architects from the Yongin Regional Architects Association. The joint inspection team plans to inspect the eight apartment complexes over four weeks.
The inspection targets are ▲ Gojin Station Hillstate D1 and D2 complexes (2,703 households) ▲ Mohyeon Hillstate B1 and B3 complexes (2,413 households) ▲ Yangji Kyungnam Honorsville H1, H2, and H3 complexes (1,164 households) ▲ Jukjeon Premium Foret (430 households).
The main inspection items include ▲ management status of concrete cracks, material separation, and construction joint occurrence sections ▲ repair management status of cracks and leaks in slabs, walls, and floors of rooftops and underground parking lots ▲ wall finishing status of common areas such as exterior walls and internal stairwells ▲ leaks inside units, window frame fixation, and finishing conditions.
The city plans to immediately order corrective actions for any deficiencies found during the inspection and, if serious defects are discovered, ensure that defect repairs are completed before the prospective residents’ pre-move-in visits.
A city official said, "We will conduct thorough inspections with professionalism to ensure that apartment complexes are built in a way that citizens can trust and be satisfied with."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
