[Editorial] Abnormal Subscriptions

A person who owned seven houses in the metropolitan area was selected in an apartment subscription lottery in 2005 and given the right to purchase an apartment house in the metropolitan area once again. This area was nominated as an overheated speculation district, where those who own no houses should have had top priority for the right to purchase one. However, the homeowner won top priority in the subscription lottery.

Such instances surrounding the purchase of apartments, which were disclosed by the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAI), were frustrating to citizens who had never imagined that housing subscription lotteries were administered in such an inadequate manner.

A handicapped person won the right to purchase a total of 19 houses by abusing a special system for the handicapped 71 times from 2001 to 2005. Those who have won the right to buy houses within the past five years are restricted as far as future purchases, but many of them were allowed to purchase apartments in overheated speculation districts in Seoul.

Preferential illegality in subscription lotteries, in which public officials and seller executives took apartment units that had not been sold, was also reported, which should never happen if the subscription lotteries are processed in a legal way.

It is surprising that 80 percent of apartments for sale was sold without a computerized search process which sorts out unqualified lottery winners. Sellers evaded their responsibility to check with the Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MCT) and the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute (KFTC) about winners’ qualifications, including whether they owned any houses and had any record for winning previously, citing the excuse of procedural complexities for the qualification formalities. Besides, metropolitan and regional public officials may have been negligent of supervising construction companies as well.

A subscription lottery sales system is the fairest way for most people to get to own their homes. But an unfair and ambiguous system brings about a breach of faith and trust for a community. As good people who abide by laws are made to look like fools, we cannot help but question about how the MCT that failed to administer the subscription lottery properly plans to rectify the sense of loss good people have felt.

The university entrance examination and apartment sales system are the most complicated issues of all the government’s policies because there are a lot of interests involved. The systems have been provided in detail, but the above-mentioned problem was caused by inattentive management that allows construction companies to carry out sales processes at their own discretion.

A linkage system between the housing network and KFTC subscription winners’ management network has not been established. Because of this, it is natural that the real estate measures offered by the government have not been effective.