HUG Repaid 2.8 Trillion Won on Behalf of Malicious Landlords... Recovery Rate Only 15% [2024 National Audit]

HUG Returns 3.4 Trillion KRW on Behalf of Malicious Landlords
2.8 Trillion KRW Still Unrecovered

Appearance of Assemblyman Park Yong-gap. [Photo by Yonhap News]

The Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG) has revealed that the amount of money it has paid on behalf of malicious landlords for jeonse deposits and has not been recovered amounts to 2.8828 trillion KRW. Only 15% of the subrogation payments have been recovered.

According to the 'Jeonse Deposit Focused Management Multi-Household Debtor Recovery Status' received by Park Yong-gap, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, from HUG on the 16th, as of last month, HUG has returned jeonse deposits to tenants on behalf of landlords in 17,021 cases, totaling 3.4152 trillion KRW.

Multi-household debtors under focused management are landlords who have failed to return jeonse deposits to tenants who subscribed to the jeonse deposit return guarantee, and HUG has paid on their behalf three or more times. These landlords are either unreachable or have not repaid guarantee debts for over a year. They are commonly referred to as "malicious landlords."

HUG has recovered only 532.4 billion KRW from these landlords, leaving 2.8828 trillion KRW still unrecovered. The recovery rate stands at just 15.5%.

By region, 97.6% of the total unrecovered amount of 2.8828 trillion KRW is concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area.

In Seoul, the amount HUG paid on behalf of landlords is 1.1749 trillion KRW. Of this, HUG has recovered only 21.4%, or 285.4 billion KRW. In Incheon, only 6.8% (80.3 billion KRW) of the 1.1749 trillion KRW paid has been recovered. In Gyeonggi Province, 17.0% (137.7 billion KRW) of 807.7 billion KRW has been recovered.

The remaining balance of jeonse deposit subrogation payments that HUG has yet to recover is highest in Seoul in the districts of Gangseo-gu (412.5 billion KRW), Yangcheon-gu (128.8 billion KRW), Guro-gu (122.5 billion KRW), and Geumcheon-gu (102.1 billion KRW), in that order.

In Incheon, the largest balances are in Bupyeong-gu (349.1 billion KRW), Michuhol-gu (308.6 billion KRW), Namdong-gu (193.9 billion KRW), and Seo-gu (154.4 billion KRW). In Gyeonggi Province, the balances are largest in Bucheon-si (297.1 billion KRW), Goyang-si (59.4 billion KRW), and Anyang-si (48.4 billion KRW).

As of last month, there were 849 multi-household debtors under focused management, with the highest numbers in Gyeonggi (269), Seoul (249), and Incheon (168), respectively.

Assemblyman Park said, "These main perpetrators of jeonse fraud not only trample on the lives of ordinary citizens but also undermine the financial soundness of public enterprises funded by taxpayers' money. We must relentlessly track down the hidden assets of malicious landlords to prevent them from gaining a foothold in the jeonse market."