Housing and commercial lease mediation cases reach 4,511 over past 5 years

Deposit and property return disputes account for 33.6% of all lease conflicts

Housing disputes in first 8 months of this year already exceed full-year 2025 total

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Hwang Hee [provided by the lawmaker's office]
Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Hwang Hee [provided by the lawmaker's office]

Filings with lease dispute mediation committees have risen every year, and housing dispute cases logged in the first eight months of this year have already surpassed the full-year 2025 total, new data show. Conflicts over deposit and property returns and maintenance obligations make up a large share of cases, prompting calls to strengthen dispute prevention and improve the effectiveness of mediation.

Data submitted to Hwang Hee, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker on the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee representing Seoul's Yangcheon-gap district, by the Korea Real Estate Board show that lease dispute mediation committees received a combined 4,511 cases over the past five years — 3,788 involving housing and 723 involving commercial properties.

Filings have climbed steadily each year. Housing dispute cases rose from 419 in 2022 to 645 in 2023, 685 in 2024 and 952 in 2025. Commercial property disputes followed the same upward trend over the same period, increasing from 119 to 142, 158 and 174 cases respectively.

From January through August this year, housing dispute filings reached 1,087 — 135 more than the full-year 2025 total. Commercial property filings stood at 130 over the same period, equivalent to 74.7 percent of last year's annual total. Combined, the 1,217 housing and commercial cases filed through August have already exceeded the 1,126 cases recorded across all of 2025.

Disputes over maintenance and repair obligations have risen particularly sharply in the housing sector. Cases jumped from 63 in 2023 to 107 in 2024 and 233 in 2025 — a 3.7-fold increase in two years. Of the 267 additional housing cases filed last year compared with the year before, 126, or 47.2 percent, involved maintenance and repair disputes. This year, 265 such cases had already been filed through August, surpassing the full-year 2025 figure.

By category, deposit and property return disputes were the most common type of housing case, accounting for 1,329 filings, or 35.1 percent of the total. Maintenance and repair obligation disputes followed at 688 cases (18.2 percent), ahead of damages claims at 659 (17.4 percent), contract renewal and termination at 539 (14.2 percent), and contract performance and interpretation at 302 (8.0 percent). Together, return and maintenance disputes made up 53.2 percent of all housing cases.

Deposit and property return disputes also topped the list for commercial properties, with 186 cases, or 25.7 percent of the total. They were followed by rent and deposit adjustment disputes at 146 cases (20.2 percent), contract renewal and termination at 117 (16.2 percent), contract performance and interpretation at 87 (12.0 percent), damages claims at 65 (9.0 percent), key money disputes at 47 (6.5 percent), and maintenance and repair obligations at 46 (6.4 percent).

Critics have also raised concerns about the limited effectiveness of mediation despite the surge in filings. Of 3,689 concluded housing cases, only 658 resulted in a mediation agreement and 815 in a settlement withdrawal by mutual consent — a combined resolution rate of just 39.9 percent. The figure was even lower for commercial properties: of 709 concluded cases, 100 reached a mediation agreement and 109 ended in a settlement withdrawal, for a resolution rate of only 29.5 percent.

"Lease dispute mediation is a means of redress designed to protect the residential stability of ordinary citizens and the livelihoods of small business owners," Hwang said. "We must strengthen systematic support — from informing parties of their rights and obligations at the contract stage to providing expert counseling and mediation — so that recurring conflicts over deposit and property returns and repair obligations can be reduced. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Real Estate Board should analyze by category the reasons cases fail to reach agreement and reform the system so that people can obtain redress swiftly."


bigroot@heraldcorp.com