Promote mandatory real estate registration and transaction reporting for public officials and employees of public enterprises

Input 2021.03.14 09:16

Real estate-related officials seem to be obligated to register property even under level 5
The government sets up a TF and initiates a countermeasure to eradicate speculation

The government is working on a plan to promote the real estate registration system and transaction reporting system for public officials and executives of public institutions related to real estate policy in the wake of the suspected speculation of employees of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH).

According to the government on the 14th, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, the Financial Services Commission, the National Tax Service, the National Police Agency, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, and the Financial Supervisory Service established a task force (TF) and started to prepare measures to eradicate speculation. A government official said, “We are gathering opinions from each institution on measures to eradicate speculation, centering on the Ministry of Finance,” and “We will prepare measures as soon as possible while looking at the status quo in public officials’ speculation investigations and announce it.” Measures to eradicate speculation are expected to be announced as early as this month.

The government is preparing countermeasures focusing on four areas: prevention and detection of speculation, punishment and recovery of unfair benefits.

In order to prevent and detect illegal activities such as speculation, the real estate registration system and reporting system are under consideration.

The real estate registration system is a method in which the real estate property of public officials related to real estate policies such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and LH, and executives and employees of public institutions are regularly registered. We are also looking into ways to disclose some of these. It is a method of expanding the subject of the current property registration obligation for public officials based on level 4 or higher to public officials under level 5 and executives and employees of public institutions in the case of real estate policy related persons.

The real estate reporting system is a system in which public officials and executives and employees of public institutions related to real estate policy voluntarily report to the head of a real estate transaction whenever they make a real estate transaction.

The government believes that if the real estate registration system and the reporting system are implemented together, it is possible to prevent those involved in real estate policy from engaging in illegal transactions such as speculation, and even if illegal transactions occur, it will be possible to immediately detect them. A government official said, “If we implement a registration system that regularly registers and a reporting system that reports every time real estate is acquired, we will be able to efficiently check whether real estate policy related persons are illegally acting.”

The reinforcement of penalties and unfair gains will be applied to both public and private illegal transactions. A typical plan is to redeem up to five times the unfair profits obtained from illegal transactions. The government plans to take follow-up measures, such as restricting employment to real estate-related agencies and preventing the acquisition of related business licenses when illegal activities are detected. In particular, severe punishment for the four major market disruption activities, such as illegal brokerage and disruption such as speculation, illegal use of non-public or unfair use of internal information, market price manipulation such as collusion, false sales and reports canceled after a contract, and illegal resale and unfair subscription. It is also expected to come true.

The government is expected to review not only illegal acts such as speculation directly committed by business officials, such as public officials and employees of public institutions, but also ways to punish third parties who participated in illegal activities by receiving information from them. It is also a strong punishment for speculation through family and acquaintances.

In addition to government measures, the National Assembly is also pursuing related legislation. Amendments to the Public Service Ethics Act to expand the subject of property registration obligations, an amendment to the Special Public Housing Act to redeem up to five times the profits obtained through leakage of public housing information, and an amendment to the Korea Land and Housing Corporation Act prohibiting the use of undisclosed information by LH employees have been proposed. It’s a state. As many of these bills are in a similar context to the countermeasures the government is preparing, the government is expected to coordinate with the National Assembly in the process of revising the law after the announcement of the countermeasures to proceed with the government’s process.