Apartments with Stores in Seoul Should be Sold by Open Subscription

The suppliers of Apartments with stores and officetels in Seoul should sell by open subscription from the end of this month, or they would be punished with imprisonment up to 2 years or fine of up to 20 million won.

The buyer who did not subscribe openly also pay the fine of 5 million won.

The Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) announced on the 9th that it is revising the house construction promotion law as above, and will operate the law soon after National Assembly vote for the bill at the special session.

Lee Choon-Hee head of the Housing and Urban Affairs Bureau in MOCT explained, “as suppliers have decided the way of selling for apartments with stores and officetels so far, there came lots of problems like manipulation of sales ratio and the premium of buying rights, booming speculations, and the suspicions over the preferential sale of Park View apartment in Bundang, Seongnam City, Gyeonggi province. We added the regulation for punishment in order to prevent the problems. ”

According to the revised bill, the minister of MOCT or Mayor of the area where speculation like overheated subscriptions is doubted can designate the area as speculation overheated area, and the compound apartments and officetels in the area should be sold through open subscription and open lottery.

The place that is designated as speculation overheated area so far is only Seoul, but Gyeonggi province plan to designate some cities and guns as such.

Apartments with stores and officetels have been classified as general office building that not house construction promotion law but construction law was applied to them, and builders could decide the way of sales arbitrary.

Meanwhile, the limitation on the sales of lottery for apartment purchase, which enables the sale one year after the contraction with payments of 2 installments, is likely to be postponed by one month from the original plan (early June).

That is because it takes more than one month to complement the revised house construction promotion law with operational regulations.

Jae-Seong Hwang Ki-Jeong Ko jsonhng@donga.com koh@donga.com