[Anchor]

Cheong Wa Dae has stepped forward for consecutive days to address the controversy surrounding the collateral registration set during the sale of President Lee Jae-myung's apartment. While the presidential office refuted claims of preferential treatment for reconstruction as groundless, explaining it was simply consideration for the buyer, the opposition party has kept up its offensive, labeling it a "subterfuge transaction."

Reporter Park Yerim has the details.

[Reporter]

Today (July 22), Cheong Wa Dae hosted a Q&A-style YouTube broadcast titled "The Truth Behind the President's Home Sale," featuring the deputy spokesperson and a real estate professor.

The broadcast explained that the decision by President Lee Jae-myung and his spouse to set a collateral of 1.77 billion won for the buyer while selling their apartment in Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, for 2.9 billion won was "consideration for the buyer" to successfully succeed the union membership status for the apartment slated for reconstruction.

[Han Moon-do / Professor of Real Estate, Seoul Digital University: (If registration is delayed), they cannot receive the occupancy right. You can view this as the president thoughtfully completing the registration a bit early and setting the collateral for the balance upon consideration.]

[Ahn Gwi-ryung / Deputy Spokesperson for Cheong Wa Dae: How is this different from a bank loan?]

[Han Moon-do / Professor of Real Estate, Seoul Digital University: Well, it is the exact same action, only with a different party to the transaction.]

It was also explained that President Lee and his spouse decided not to charge interest for granting the buyer a grace period of several months on the balance payment.

When critics pointed out that waiving interest could be deemed a gift, Cheong Wa Dae stated in a separate official release after the broadcast that "the gift tax issue will be handled in accordance with relevant regulations."

Late last night, Cheong Wa Dae also clarified that "claims of a private connection with the buyer are entirely baseless," adding that the designation of the apartment as a leading district for reconstruction took place in November 2024 under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, making "claims of preferential treatment for reconstruction absurd."

The People Power Party criticized the move, stating, "While placing shackles of loan regulations on the public, the president used the expediency of private collateral for a self-granted exemption—a mere subterfuge."

They added that "it is a deception that the person who created the loan regulations is bypassing them himself."

Amid high-intensity loan regulations, this method of "private-to-private collateral transactions" has been utilized in areas such as Gangnam in Seoul.

[Gangnam Real Estate Agent: It has existed for a while. Because loans are blocked, there were cases where parties agreed upon it for high-end transactions, and now it has surfaced into the public eye because of the president's case...]

Tomorrow, President Lee will preside over a national public debate on real estate policy.

Attention is focused on whether he will state his position regarding this apartment sale or loan regulations.

(Video Reporter: Jeong Sang-bo, Ha Ryong | Video Editing: Yu Mi-ra, Design: Han Song-yeon)