“Go Check House Prices Personally.”

Prices of every detached house (multi-family houses included) and multi-family or small and medium-sized row house nationwide were announced for the first time.

The house prices can be seen at relevant town (myon or dong) offices in the areas where each house is located.

The Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) said on Monday that it has finished appraisal of 4,365,000 detached houses and 2,262,000 multi-family or small and medium-sized row houses (under 165㎡ in exclusive space), and that it is now taking opinions only from the owners of each house and the interested party.

The government is planning to make house prices reflect the opinions accepted during this period to issue an official notice of house prices at the end of April through deliberation by a real estate appraisal council of the central and local government.

Tax standard values for apartments and large row houses (over 165㎡ in exclusive space), which were appraised by the National Tax Service (NTS) last month, will be made public at the same time.

The government’s house prices and tax standard values are to be used as standards for real estate taxation of all sorts, including the property tax, acquisition tax, registered tax, comprehensive real estate tax, and capital gains tax.

Essential Checkpoint In House Prices-

The level of preliminary house prices by the government amounts to 80 percent of market prices as of January 1, 2005. This balances with the NTS’s tax standard value that has been 80 percent of market prices.

As for detached and multi-family houses, local government officials decided on preliminary house prices, considering purposes of land, house types, surroundings, and building structures, on the basis of the standard house price of 135,000 households announced by the MOCT in January 2005.

Accordingly, in order to check whether or not the preliminary prices are appropriate, it should not be compared with current market prices but the 80 percent market prices as of the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005.

The preliminary prices need to be compared also with those of neighboring areas with the same condition. If remarkable differences are found, the calculation might possibly have been wrong.

Detached and multi-family house owners should personally visit the civil affairs department of their town (myon or dong) offices to verify the prices of them. As far as multi-family or small and medium-sized row houses are concerned, their prices are available at the Internet homepage of the MOCT (www.moct.go.kr) as well as in town (myon or dong) offices.

Re-adjustment Available In May-

There is no need to be concerned about not being able to check house prices by this month due to circumstances such as an overseas business trip.

This is because the government will readjust house prices by the end of June after accepting revision requests in May.

However, if the property tax imposed on buildings in July will be calculated as of June 1, and the readjustment will not be reflected in the taxation, some troubles may be caused when taxpayers tentatively pay the tax and are then repaid or required to pay additional taxes according to the readjusted prices.

Jae-Seong Hwang jsonhng@donga.com