▲ Apartment complex in the city
Nearly 1,700 cases of illegal apartment subscriptions have been uncovered at private apartment pre-sale sites across the country over the past five years.
Fake address transfers aimed at increasing subscription scores by adding dependents accounted for 8 out of 10 cases.
According to data on the "results of inspections and corrective actions for violations at private pre-sale sites" submitted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to Representative Yoo Sang-bum of the People Power Party on the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee on October 4, an inspection of 212,892 units across 350 private pre-sale complexes nationwide from 2021 to June of last year led to the discovery and police referral of 1,669 illegal subscription cases.
By type, false address transfers (1,380 cases), where residents falsely moved their resident registration, accounted for 82.7% of the total.
Among the scoring criteria for private housing, dependents are scored from 0 dependents (5 points) up to "6 or more dependents" (35 points). Each additional dependent increases the score by 5 points, making a large number of dependents very advantageous for raising scores.
For example, a married head of household can raise their score by 20 points by falsely registering four parents from both sides at a fake address.
The detection of fake address transfers has more than doubled from 157 cases in 2021 to 491 cases in 2024, showing an upward trend with another 245 cases uncovered in the first half of 2025 alone.
Following fake address transfers, the most frequent violations were the trading of subscription accounts and eligibility (240 cases), fake marriages and divorces (47 cases), and the falsification and manipulation of qualifications (2 cases).
However, among the 655 cases sent to prosecutors by police following investigation requests, actual wins and contract cancellations were completed in only 273 cases (41.1%), falling short of half.
Lawsuits and trials are underway for 294 cases, and 55 cases were judged as "difficult to cancel" due to reasons such as the winning pre-sale right already being resold and purchased by a bona fide third party.
Illegal acts committed not only by individual subscribers but also by project entities supplying apartments were also uncovered, totaling 215 cases during the same period.
The most common type was "arbitrary supply in advance under the guise of first-come, first-served contracts," accounting for 205 cases (95.3%).
This corresponds to so-called "blind preferential pre-sales," where residual units generated from disqualification cancellations or contract forfeitures after subscription wins are not sequentially supplied to reserve tenants according to regulations, but are instead arbitrarily distributed to specific individuals in advance.
Another problem is that such illegal acts by private pre-sale project entities, which are not subject to government site inspections, are difficult to monitor.
Currently, private pre-sale project entities only notify the Korea Real Estate Board of lists regarding disqualified winning cancellations, and do not separately submit sequential contract ledgers for reserve tenants or contract forfeiture confirmation forms that they compile themselves.
Representative Yoo Sang-bum stated, "Illegal subscriptions and arbitrary supplies by project entities are market-disturbing acts that trample on the hopes of homeless ordinary citizens and young people who have diligently built up their subscription scores and waited for fair opportunities," adding, "The fact that hundreds of cases were uncovered just through sample inspections means that far more illegal activities are taking place behind the scenes in private sites where surveillance does not reach."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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