11 finalized wins total 2 billion won in awarded damages
Only 3.5 million won recovered; 10 cases yield nothing
Unpaid penalties persist despite contract and construction wins
Lawmaker Mo Gyeong-jong calls for separate debt-recovery tracking
Korea Land and Housing Corporation has won a series of housing-purchase lawsuits over the past five years and is owed 2 billion won ($1.47 million) in court-awarded damages — yet has managed to collect only 3.5 million won of that total. In some cases, the state housing agency even paid lawyers' success fees after winning, while the penalties owed by the opposing parties remained uncollected.
According to housing-purchase litigation data that LH submitted to the office of Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Mo Gyeong-jong, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, 11 cases in which LH prevailed between 2021 and June this year carried a combined awarded amount of 2 billion won.
The actual amount recovered, however, stood at just 3.5 million won — 0.17 percent of the total awarded. The entire sum came from a single penalty claim handled by LH's Daegu-North Gyeongsang Province regional office. The remaining 10 cases have yielded nothing.
Under LH's housing purchase program, the corporation buys privately built or planned homes and converts them into public rental housing. When a purchase agreement is signed before construction begins, LH may cancel the contract and seek penalties or damages if the developer violates the terms or the housing fails to meet quality standards.
The largest unrecovered amount involves a purchase-price refund lawsuit filed by LH's Incheon regional office. LH is owed 1.73 billion won but has collected nothing so far; the corporation said it is currently investigating the defendant company's assets.
In one specific case, LH's Seoul regional office signed a purchase agreement with a developer in 2022 for a housing project worth about 30 billion won in Jongno-gu, Seoul. After cultural artifacts were unearthed at the site and the project stalled, the developer sold the land to a third party without consulting LH. LH canceled the agreement and sued for a penalty of 38.58 million won, winning by default judgment — but has yet to collect a single won.
At an officetel project for which LH's Gyeonggi South regional office signed a purchase agreement in 2021, inspectors found that the concrete used during construction fell below the required strength standard. LH canceled the agreement and claimed a penalty of 59.55 million won, equivalent to 110 percent of the appraisal costs. LH again won by default, but the recovery stands at zero. The corporation has registered the counterparty as a delinquent debtor and sends payment requests every three months.
There are also cases where LH paid lawyers' success fees despite failing to collect the very penalties those wins secured. The Seoul regional office paid 2.75 million won in success fees in March after prevailing in one penalty lawsuit, yet the counterparty has refused to pay and the penalty remains outstanding.
Other unrecovered amounts include 61.63 million won and 51.39 million won from two separate damages suits handled by LH's Busan-Ulsan regional office, 32.27 million won from a damages case handled by the North Chungcheong Province office, and 14.48 million won from a contract-cancellation penalty suit handled by the Gwangju-South Jeolla Province office.
"Failing to collect on a court win is nothing but a waste of litigation costs," Mo said. He called on LH to treat post-victory debt recovery as a separate management indicator, track collection results case by case, and strengthen mechanisms for verifying a developer's ability to perform at the contract-signing stage.
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