"Compensated Land from Japanese Colonial Era"... Busan Waterworks Headquarters Reclaims Land Ownership After 84 Years

Searched the underground archive to find 1941 compensation documents
"Won the lawsuit for transfer of 3,868㎡, 800 million KRW water supply land"
The determination of a dedicated official in proactive administration bears fruit

Water supply land, whose ownership could not be transferred despite compensation during the Japanese colonial period, has returned to its rightful owner after more than 80 years.

The decisive factor was an employee who searched the underground storage and found related documents written in 1941. This also led to a rare record of land ownership transfer registration being completed after 84 years.

The Busan Metropolitan Waterworks Headquarters announced on the 24th that it has reclaimed ownership of 3,868㎡ of water supply land, for which compensation equivalent to a sale was made in 1941 but ownership transfer was not completed.

This was because the ownership transfer lawsuit filed by the headquarters in May last year was won on the 9th and the judgment was finalized on the 23rd.

This water supply land is used as a road for managing Hoedong Dam in the Hoedong Reservoir and was established during the first expansion construction of Hoedong Dam carried out in 1941. Its current property value is approximately 800 million KRW.

It is currently open to the public as part of the Hoedong Reservoir trail creation project, and a large pipeline supplying raw water to the Myeongjang Water Purification Plant is also installed there.

This lawsuit was filed in response to claims by the registered owners of the water supply land, who argued that the headquarters had constructed and used the road without proper compensation, causing property damage, and had filed complaints demanding land usage fees.

The victory is regarded as the result of proactive administration by the responsible official. He judged that although proper compensation was clearly made by the Busan Prefecture Waterworks Department in 1941, the ownership transfer registration was omitted due to the chaotic period around liberation and the outbreak of the Korean War. He dramatically found the related compensation documents after months of searching the underground archives. Based on this, the lawsuit was filed and ultimately won.

It is common for records from the Japanese colonial period to be lost due to the chaos around liberation and the outbreak of the Korean War, so the headquarters could have assumed that no compensation had been made to the registered owners and proceeded with compensation procedures.

The 8th Civil Division of the Busan District Court ruled that the compensation-related documents submitted by the headquarters are official documents containing compensation unit prices, amounts, and payment dates, and that although the headquarters had constructed roads and laid pipelines, it had taken no action until recent complaints were filed. Therefore, the court ordered the headquarters to proceed with the ownership transfer registration based on the compensation payment date.

Kim Byung-gi, head of the Busan Metropolitan Waterworks Headquarters, said, “We are very pleased to have reclaimed ownership of the water supply land,” and added, “We will do our best to manage public enterprise assets by discovering similar cases and promoting ownership acquisition.”