Drama Becomes Reality... Sham Marriage Leads to Newlywed Special Supply Fraud Bust

Cases of "Sham Couples" Targeting Newlywed Special Supply Confirmed
Widespread Fraudulent Practices Including Fake Address Registration of Direct Ascendants and Fake Divorces
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport: "Severe Penalties for Fraudulent Applications, Including 10-Year Ban and Home Repossession"

The 2021 drama "Happiness" featured a storyline in which the male and female leads entered into a "sham marriage" to receive extra points for a special apartment allocation. As a result, they won the chance to purchase a new apartment in a major city.

Reality is not much different from the drama. On April 29, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it had inspected the subscription and supply status of 40 major housing complexes in the Seoul metropolitan area scheduled for sale in the second half of 2024, and uncovered a total of 390 cases of fraudulent applications, which have been referred to the police for investigation. Among these, there were also cases of sham marriages. For example, one couple posed as an "engaged couple" and successfully applied for a newlywed special supply (Shinhon Teukgong) in Incheon. After winning the lottery, they immediately restored their "single status" through a court lawsuit.

By type of fraud, the most common was fake address registration of direct ascendants (a total of 243 cases). This was followed by fake address registration by applicants themselves (141 cases), sham marriages and divorces (2 cases), forgery and qualification manipulation (2 cases), and illegal resale (2 cases). There were also cases of "fake divorces." In one case, a woman applied for housing as a non-homeowner nine times after a consensual divorce and eventually won a general supply apartment in Goyang with a high subscription score. Although she was divorced on paper, she was actually living with her husband and two children in an apartment owned by her husband. If she had not gone through a "fake divorce," her chances of winning the lottery would have been extremely low, since she would have been classified as a homeowner.

Other types of fraudulent behavior were also uncovered, such as moving parents' addresses to increase the number of dependents and thereby raise the subscription score. In one case, a woman reported that her mother from Nowon-gu, Seoul, and her mother-in-law from Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province, were living together in one house, and succeeded in a Gwacheon housing lottery. She claimed that she, her husband, their three children, and both mothers were all living together in a four-bedroom house, but an investigation determined this was not possible under actual living conditions, and the fake address registration was revealed.

This inspection notably introduced a new method of verifying actual residency by requiring the submission of "health insurance medical benefit records." As a result, the number of detected cases involving fake address registration of direct ascendants more than tripled compared to previous checks. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced tough penalties for those caught engaging in fraudulent applications, including up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won, cancellation of the sales contract and repossession of the home, and a 10-year ban on future applications.

Jung Suho, head of the Housing Fund Division at the Ministry, stated, "To prevent fraudulent applications, we plan to expand the requirement for 'medical benefit records' to all housing complexes and further strengthen our verification system. Those who engage in fraudulent applications should be especially cautious, as they risk losing the greatest opportunity to build personal wealth in their lives."