[Anchor]
Suspicions have been raised that Supreme Court Justice nominee Kim Sung-soo evaded gift taxes by living in a high-end apartment in Gangnam, Seoul, at a deposit of 350 million won, which is significantly lower than the market price. His brother-in-law reportedly rented the home on a jeonse (lump-sum deposit) lease and then subleased it to the nominee. However, reporting reveals that the landlord stated they had never agreed to this.
Reporter Kim Bo-mi has the story.
[Reporter]
This 120-square-meter apartment in Dogok-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, is where Supreme Court Justice nominee Kim Sung-soo resides under a jeonse lease.
He has lived there since 2021, and moved to an apartment of the same size on a different floor in the same building two years later.
According to actual transaction prices disclosed by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the jeonse price around that period was 1.5 billion to 1.6 billion won.
In his public official property disclosures, nominee Kim reported the lease deposits for both apartments as 350 million won each.
However, the actual contract holder was not nominee Kim, but his brother-in-law.
It was a sublease agreement in which the brother-in-law leased the property and then subleased it back to nominee Kim.
Looking at the 2023 lease contract, the landlord and the brother-in-law signed a jeonse agreement with a deposit of 1.45 billion won. The brother-in-law, as the tenant, set a total deposit of about 750 million won—roughly half of that amount—and rented the unit to nominee Kim.
At that time, the deposit was 350 million won with a monthly rent of 800,000 won.
However, landlord A, interviewed by SBS, stated, "It is true that I leased the property to the brother-in-law, Mr. Kim, but I knew nothing about the existence of a sublease agreement between Mr. Kim and nominee Kim."
Article 629 of the Civil Act stipulates that "a lessee may not sublease the leased property without the consent of the lessor."
Without the landlord's consent, it constitutes an unauthorized sublease.
Meanwhile, nominee Kim previously lived under a jeonse lease in a 59-square-meter apartment in Yeoksam-dong from 2011 to 2020, where the landlord was his brother-in-law.
Although the jeonse market price for this apartment rose from 400 million won to 1.1 billion won over a decade, nominee Kim continuously listed the deposit as 350 million won in his public official property disclosures.
An opposition lawmaker raised suspicions of "gift tax evasion," pointing out that the deposit was far below the market rate.
[Joo Jin-woo / People Power Party Lawmaker: He has resided in a high-end Gangnam apartment while maintaining a fixed jeonse deposit of 350 million won. He has repeatedly and habitually evaded hundreds of millions of won in taxes.]
Nominee Kim's side responded that they moved into the Dogok-dong apartment together in 2021 at the recommendation of his mother-in-law, who was concerned about her unmarried son, and added that "the nominee is also aware of the tax issues."
Regarding the landlord's claim of being unaware of the sublease, they argued that there is no issue because the brother-in-law's lease contract stated that nominee Kim's family would reside together.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
Reported by Kim Hak-mo, Lee Seung-hwan, and Shin Dong-hwan | Video Editing by Nam Il | Design by Kang Yoon-jung and Hwang Se-yeon
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