“I was stranded in this house forever” The first full-scale investigation into ‘victims of rental fraud’ in Gangseo-gu

☞Subscribe to the Hankyoreh newsletter H:730. Type ‘Hankyoreh h730’ in the search bar. As a result of a thorough survey of victims in the Gangseo area of ​​Seoul, where large-scale lease fraud occurred, more than half of them had to cry and buy the damaged houses, and in the process, they suffered double and triple financial difficulties due to difficult loan support, auction delays, and excessive litigation expenses. It was found that Although it has been five months since the Jeonse Fraud Victims Act came into effect, there are many people who are being forced into high-interest loans due to blind spots. According to the Gangseo-gu Office’s ‘Results of a Survey on Victims of Jeonse Fraud’ obtained by the Hankyoreh on the 3rd, more than half of the victims who did not receive their deposit back were choosing to ‘purchase the damaged house’ to minimize damage. This is more than half of the respondents (320 people), or 64.1% (205 people). This is because the Jeonse Fraud Victims Act ‘recommends’ this method by providing preferential purchase rights or providing purchase loan support. However, even in the process of purchasing damaged houses through auction, many difficulties had to be encountered due to institutional loopholes. Auction participants must pay 10% of the minimum selling price as a bidding deposit. Most of the victims had already exceeded their total Debt Service Ratio (DSR) due to the lease loan, so many of them had secured the bid deposit through high-interest credit loans. The problem is that due to the lease fraud, there are a lot of auction items in the court, so it takes more than a year from bidding to winning the bid. During this period, the interest burden falls entirely on the victim. Mr. Baek (41) said, “It has been almost two years since the auction took place. He has been living in pain for a long time. “Please handle it quickly.” Even if the auction was held, there were many cases where low-interest loan support was not available due to income conditions. Mr. Kim (35) won the bid for the damaged house, but was unable to receive loan support, so the interest burden was greater than when borrowing money for a lease. He said, “All victims of lease fraud are the same, so why do you consider income standards?” He added, “(The houses that were purchased as victims) are not sold, so they are unable to repay the (high-interest) loans. “I wanted to die because of the hellish officetel, but I feel like I’m still in hell,” he said. Even if the bid is successful, problems remain. In the case of officetel victims, the acquisition tax amounts to 4.6%. It is more than 4 times the rate of general housing, which is 1.1%. All costs must be borne by the victim. Some of the damaged houses have been illegally converted into houses from neighborhood living facilities or have illegal structures such as balcony extensions, which may make it difficult to resell them later. It is difficult to find a tenant, so you could be stuck in this house forever. Ms. Jeong, 32, tried to move her child to another home as she grew up, but she was unable to do so. He, who bought the damaged house, said, “I was deceived by a broker and entered into a lease in an illegal building. “I bought it, but since it is an illegal building, I cannot get a lease loan, so it is difficult to find a tenant,” he said. “I am permanently stranded in this house.” “It’s so hard because everything has come to nothing,” he said. Victims of Yu House are another blind spot. Since they cannot get a low-interest loan, they cannot buy the damaged house, and since they cannot get the rental deposit back, they cannot return the deposit to the existing tenant of their house, so they cannot live in their own house. Various litigation costs were also a burden. The government announced that it was supporting one-stop services such as legal consultation and auction agency, but voices on the ground differed. One victim responded, “Because I have no expertise in the field, such as auction procedures, they did not provide specific procedures, and they provided information commonly found on the Internet, which was not of much help. I also did not know the details of the Jeonse Fraud Victims Act.” . As a result of the survey, victims were found to be spending an average of 1,612,000 won on litigation costs, including stamp and delivery fees, and an average of 3,793,000 won on attorney hiring fees. Gangseo-gu Office said, “Because they are victims with preferential purchase rights, there is a need to simplify the auction process,” and added, “The report also included a recommendation that income or property standards be excluded from the loan support requirements.” This survey was conducted over a two-week period from the 16th to the 30th of last month targeting 550 people who had applied for review to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Jeonse Fraud Victim Support Committee among the victims of lease fraud in Gangseo-gu, and 355 people responded. Among the respondents, 320 were recognized as victims. 71.9% of the victims were in their 20s and 30s, and 80.9% of the respondents had a deposit between 100 million and 300 million won. The average legal cost due to lease fraud was 5.4 million won. It was found that 80% of respondents were experiencing physical and psychological pain, including sleep disorders, and 20.9% of victims were experiencing suicidal thoughts. Reporter Kim Ga-yoon gayoon@hani.co.kr