Son Taerak, Head of Korea Real Estate Board, "Strengthening Verification of Excessive Changes in Official Property Prices" [2024 National Audit]

"Reinforcement of Public Price Calculation System Server, Budget Secured"

Son Tae-rak, President of the Korea Real Estate Board, said that efforts are being made to strengthen verification in various ways in response to criticisms that the rate of change in publicly announced real estate prices is excessively high and lacks reliability due to errors in the Real Estate Public Price Assessment System (KOREPS) introduced in January this year.

Son Tae-rak, President of the Korea Real Estate Board, is reporting on business at the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee's audit held at the National Assembly on the morning of the 16th. / Photo by Yonhap News

On the morning of the 16th, during the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee’s audit, Son responded to a question from Lee Chun-seok, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, who asked, "In Gyeonggi Province, there are cases where the rate of change in the publicly announced price exceeds 3000%. Can we trust the publicly announced prices and pay taxes accordingly?"

According to Representative Lee, more than 10,000 objections related to individual publicly announced land prices were filed as of January this year. This number exceeds the total objections filed in two rounds last year, in January and July. Objections to individual housing prices reached 532 this year, already surpassing last year’s 389 cases. Among cases in the Seoul metropolitan area where objections were accepted and the publicly announced prices were changed, there were 5 cases in Seoul, 119 in Gyeonggi, and 16 in Incheon where the rate of change was 50% or more.

President Son explained, "Individual publicly announced land prices are managed by each local government, so some issues may arise in that process. We are making various efforts to supplement and strengthen verification."

He also stated that errors in KOREPS will continue to be improved. Son said, "Since the previously separately operated systems by city, county, and district were integrated, the server load increased. Our response was somewhat insufficient. Nevertheless, we responded as quickly as possible, and there is no major problem in carrying out the public announcement tasks. We have also secured a budget to reinforce the servers next year."