Housing Regulation Changes Announced

It will be easier for a person who lives with his parents-in-law to acquire public installment sale apartments from 2008. Moreover, a plan to give additional points to households that live with grown-up offspring without income is under examination.

According to the Ministry of Construction and Transportation yesterday, housing supply regulations will be revised from the plan made by Korean Housing Institute last month until October, and it will be in effect from 2008.

There will be additional points given for the category of family structure, which counts how many people live in one house, when they live with parents-in-law. The previous version only offered advantages to those who lived with parents, grandparents or maternal grandparents, so it brought about the controversy because the people who live with parents-in-law are relatively handicapped.

With this revision, people who live with parents-in-law will get additional three points, so that it can be more likely for them to win public apartments smaller than 25.7 pyeong (one pyeong = about 36 square feet) from 2008, and to acquire a private apartment of the same size from 2010.

Also, a plan to include offspring over 20 years old in category “Number of children” is under examination, which originally gave additional points to houses with residents under 20 years old only.

“Regulations will be revised to cover the problem that there can be a disadvantage for houses which have people who live with their parents-in-law and houses with unemployed university students,” an official of Ministry of Construction and Transportation explained.

Besides, the plan for considering people with houses ‘under standard areas’ as non-house holder is under examination, too. The houses ‘under standard area’ should be smaller than 12 pyeong (40m²), or cost less than 50 million won as a posted price.

sanjuck@donga.com