If your moving day is approaching but the lease registration has not come through

The most nerve-racking moment in a deposit dispute is when the moving date and the registration date do not line up. You have signed the contract for your new home and the balance payment date is set, but the lease registration for the home you live in now has not yet appeared on the register. If you move your belongings out and transfer your move-in report at this point, you may lose your opposability and priority right to repayment, so keeping to the right order matters above all.

The reference point is when it is entered in the register

You can apply for a lease registration order (임차권등기명령) when the lease has ended and you have not received your deposit (Article 3-3(1) of the Housing Lease Protection Act (주택임대차보호법)), and once registration is made, the opposability and priority right to repayment you already have are preserved even if you move (paragraph (5) of the same Article). The reference point is neither the day you applied nor the day the order was issued, but the time the lease registration is entered in the register.

Obtain the register from the Internet Registry Office and check for yourself that the housing lease appears in section B (을구). It is easy to assume you can move once you have received the court's order, but it can take more time after the order for the registration to be entered. It is safest to pull the register once more on the morning of moving day.

What you can try when the schedules clash

• Apply the day after the lease ends, and respond to any court request for corrections the same day
• Discuss in advance whether the balance payment or move-in date for your new home can be pushed back a few days
• Inform the bank holding your jeonse loan and the guarantee insurer of your schedule and check which documents they need
• Do not move out all your belongings or transfer your resident registration before confirming the registration

You can save time by preparing the application before the lease ends and filing it as soon as the end date passes. Having the lease contract, an abstract of your resident registration, and the text message or certified mail notifying the landlord of the end of the lease ready in advance reduces time lost to corrections. If you apply through electronic litigation, you can check progress online. If the court contacts you about corrections, do not put it off until the next day.

You may hear that it is fine to move as long as you leave some belongings behind, but there is no assurance that this will be recognized as possession. If adjusting the schedule for your new home is truly difficult, please tell us about it at the start of the consultation. We need to work out together the order with the least risk given the remaining dates.

If you have taken out a jeonse deposit return guarantee, also go through the procedure of claiming performance from the guarantor. Each guarantor has its own required documents and order of steps, and many require a register showing the completed lease registration, so ask in advance.

Work remains even after registration

Lease registration is only a device to protect your deposit; it does not return the money. After moving, you obtain an enforceable title through a payment order (지급명령) or a lawsuit for return of the deposit, and if the landlord still does not pay, you apply for a compulsory auction of that home. A lawsuit for return of a deposit proceeds relatively quickly because some of the small claims procedures apply to it regardless of the amount (Article 13 of the Housing Lease Protection Act).

From the day after you vacate the home, you can also claim damages for late payment on the deposit, so keep a record of the date you handed over the keys. You can claim from the landlord the costs of applying for the lease registration order and of registration (Article 3-3(8)). A home with a lease registration becomes hard to rent to a new tenant, so around this time some landlords raise the money and get in touch.