Rival parties agreed Thursday to hold a plenary session of the National Assembly on May 25, with the aim of enacting a special bill to help victims of a series of home rental scams.
The agreement was reached between Rep. Yun Jae-ok, floor leader of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), and his counterpart from the Democratic Party (DP), Rep. Park Kwang-on, as another victim was found dead earlier in the day.
The envisioned bill, currently under review at a subcommittee of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, is designed to provide support measures for the victimized tenants, mostly in their 20s and 30s, of fraud that’s abusing the country’s unique rental system, called “jeonse.”
During previous subcommittee sessions, the PPP rejected the DP’s proposal to publicly purchase the housing units involved in the scams. The two sides have also differed on the scope of the victims.
There is the possibility of the two floor leaders directly negotiating on the envisioned bill if agreement is not reached at the subcommittee’s next session scheduled for Tuesday.
Under a series of fraud cases across the country, alleged suspects rented highly collateralized homes to the victims for deposits worth tens of millions of won. The homes ended up being put up for auction, as they failed to repay debts to financial institutions, leading to victims facing eviction without getting their deposits back.
“Floor leaders of the rival parties have agreed to make efforts for a swift agreement amid a situation in which the fourth victim was found dead today,” Lee So-young, DP spokeswoman, told reporters.
Another victim, a woman in her 30s, has been found dead in an apparent suicide in western Seoul. She had reportedly been defrauded out of her jeonse deposit by a notorious rental scammer, who had owned 1,139 multifamily housing units in western Seoul but died last October without paying deposits to their tenants.
Under jeonse, tenants give their landlord a large upfront deposit worth as much as 90 percent of the home’s value instead of paying monthly rent. The landlord then earns interest off the deposit and returns the deposit at the end of the lease.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
