Daegu Dong-gu District Office [Yonhap]
Daegu Dong-gu District Office [Yonhap]

A man in his 60s who had only vaguely heard that his ancestors once owned land in the area visited his local district office on an unrelated errand — and left having confirmed that his late father held title to more than 188,000 square meters of property.

According to Daegu's Dong-gu district office, a 65-year-old resident surnamed Seo visited the land information division Wednesday to resolve a cadastral matter.

During the visit, a staff member suggested Seo try the ancestral land search service. Seo then asked the official to help locate a plot he had heard was somewhere in Gunwi-gun but whose exact location he did not know.

The staff member ran a search through the service on Seo's behalf and identified 188,819 square meters of forest land in Gunwi-gun registered in the name of Seo's deceased father.

The land is classified as woodland and is valued at more than 100 million won ($74,800) based on the officially assessed price.

Seo expressed gratitude, saying the Dong-gu district office had helped uncover valuable property in his late father's name that he had not known existed.

The ancestral land search is a nationwide administrative service that allows people to search free of charge for land registered in an ancestor's name or in their own name through the national land information system.

The service is available at the cadastral affairs division of any city, county or district office, and applications can also be submitted through the National Spatial Data Integration Platform.

To search for land belonging to an ancestor who died before Jan. 1, 2008, applicants must submit a certified family register extract. For ancestors who died on or after that date, a death certificate and the applicant's family relations certificate are required.

Finding land through the search does not automatically transfer ownership. To exercise property rights, applicants must separately file for inheritance registration at the relevant registry office.

Dong-gu District Mayor Wu Seong-jin said the office would continue to provide attentive guidance on administrative services from the residents' perspective and work actively to protect their property rights.


bbo@heraldcorp.com