Seo Hyun-jin was also affected.And that too in a duplex penthouse in Cheongdam-dong.
In 2020, actress Seo Hyun-jin signed a lease for a luxury villa in Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam, with a deposit of 2.5 billion won.In 2022, she renewed the contract by raising the deposit to 125 million won.However, in April 2024, the landlord did not return the deposit even after the expiration date.Seo Hyun-jin applied to the court to register the lease, and eventually went through the forced auction process.

But the core of this case is not simply the’ unpaid money ‘.The problem was not the appearance of the house, but the’ rights structure ‘inside it.

This is the typical method used by jeonse scammers.They rent out a’ canned house ‘with a house price lower than the jeonse deposit to a tenant.In the meantime, the house is entangled in various rights such as mortgage loans, seizures, and tax arrears, and after the tenant moves in, they embezzle the jeonse deposit and disappear.

This villa was the same.It looked like a luxury penthouse, but a construction company had already applied for an auction, and the government had seized it for non-payment of taxes.The appraised value was over 2.8 billion won, but after one failed bid, the lowest bid fell to 2.299 billion won.That made it dangerous to recover the deposit.

The key method of jeonse fraud here is the’ ranking battle ‘.Even if you signed the jeonse contract first, if there are other rights in the register, you cannot properly get your deposit back.Even though you know this, the landlord never says,’ Look at the copy of the register ‘.He just reassures you by saying,’ The jeonse is going well ‘and’ It’s a nice house ‘.

Another method is to split tenants into’ multiple tenants ‘.Multiple tenants are made to sign a lease for one house, and it becomes unclear who signed the contract first.In this case, the tenant who came in later ends up not receiving a single penny of the deposit.

Seo Hyun-jin has the possibility of being protected as a first-priority tenant, but there are too many rights already in the house.Even if a successful bidder appears, the auction itself is difficult because he or she has to pay the deposit as well.If the auction fails again, it could be sold at a lower price than the lowest price.

The jeonse scam does not target the’ uneducated ‘.It targets people who do not know the information, people who cannot read the register, and people who are bothered by the documents.It does not matter whether it is a luxury villa or a celebrity.The method is sophisticated, and anyone can become a victim.

Seo Hyun-jin’s case shows how sophisticated and meticulous the jeonse fraud is.Now, we should not be complacent just because ‘the house price is high’.This is a world where words like register, priority, auction, and lease registration have become the language of survival.


Reporter Yang com -mo hmyang0307@donga

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.