Foreigners who sign a lease on a house and register alien certificates with the address have the same protection under the law as Korean citizens, according to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. / Korea Times file



By Lee Jin-a

Foreigners who sign a lease on a house and record the address in their certificate of alien registration have the same protection under the national housing law as Korean citizens, the Supreme Court said Tuesday.

According to the court, a U.S. permanent resident surnamed Park rented an apartment in Yongsan-gu, central Seoul, in February 2009 with a deposit of 450 million won ($396,000) and lived there with her family, who are U.S. citizens, for six years. In January 2012, her husband and children registered their alien certificates with the address of the leased apartment.

But a problem emerged when the landlord took out a loan from MG Community Credit Cooperatives using the apartment as security. He borrowed 494 million won in 2010 and 1.2 billion won in 2012 but did not repay his debt.

In January 2013, the apartment was auctioned and sold for over 1.3 billion won. The court said Park could not get any of her deposit back, while the bank took about 98 percent of the money and two other creditors the rest.

Park filed a suit against the bank claiming she should get her money back before the lender. According to Korean law, if a renter has registered his or her residency with the address of the leased apartment, they have a right to be reimbursed before other creditors. But there was no indication that foreigners had the same right with alien registration certificates.

In the first trial, the court said Park had a right to be reimbursed first as she had reported her temporary place of residence in Korea with the address of the leased apartment. But at the second trial, the court overruled the verdict, saying having alien registration certificates and reporting the temporary place of residence are not equally effective as registering residency.

Reversing that verdict, the Supreme Court said Park should be reimbursed first because alien registration and reporting the temporary place of residence have the same effect as residence registration.

"We have decided to consider alien registration as equally effective as residence registration because we want to protect foreigners who are not able to register residency in Korea under the law," the Supreme Court said.