Gyeonggi Province to Audit 106 Apartment Complexes This Year

The Gyeonggi Provincial Government will conduct audits of 106 apartment complexes in the province this year through its 31 cities and counties.

On January 14, the Gyeonggi Provincial Government announced that, under a revised ordinance scheduled to be promulgated at the end of this month, the authority to conduct audits of apartment management-when requested by at least 20% of residents-will be delegated to the cities and counties. The province will focus more on policy roles rather than conducting audits directly.

Accordingly, this year’s audits will be divided between 18 complexes directly handled by the Gyeonggi Provincial Government and 88 complexes audited by the cities and counties.

Previously, the Gyeonggi Provincial Government conducted demand surveys and selected complexes for audits directly through the cities and counties. Going forward, the local governments, which are more familiar with local circumstances, will conduct the audits themselves, enabling faster responses to complaints and more continuous management.

The main audit items include the disclosure of materials related to apartment management, management of replacement and repair histories for long-term maintenance facilities, and the adequacy of safety management plans. In addition, follow-up audits will be conducted to prevent recurrence of issues identified in previous audits, ensuring that the same violations do not occur repeatedly in the same complexes.

Continuing from last year, the Gyeonggi Provincial Government will also dispatch public officials and private experts to training sessions for members of residents’ representative councils organized by the cities and counties, providing preventive education on major audit findings.

Gyeonggi Provincial Government

Hong Ilyoung, Director of Apartment Housing at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government, stated, “We have proposed to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to revise the apartment management laws so that fines can be imposed in a more reasonable and differentiated manner according to the severity of violations. Moving forward, we will focus not on audits for the sake of imposing penalties, but on identifying vulnerable areas and improving the system rationally to protect the rights and interests of residents.”

The apartment management audit system is designed to inspect and investigate whether the residents’ representative councils and management entities of apartment complexes are complying with legal regulations regarding management fees, long-term repair reserves, accounting management, and management rules.

The audits target apartment complexes with 300 or more units, as well as those with at least 150 units that have elevators or use central or district heating. The Gyeonggi Provincial Government was the first in the nation to introduce this system in 2013, and since its legalization in 2014, it has been implemented nationwide.

To ensure fair audit results, the Gyeonggi Provincial Government has operated a review system composed of private experts since 2018, and in May last year, it established a legal basis for audits through an ordinance amendment.