Lee Hyoung-il, the nominee for deputy prime minister and minister of economy and finance, said on the 15th that he apologized for falling short of public expectations over questions about why he did not live in an apartment he owned in Gwacheon. He denied, however, that the purchase was a gap investment — buying a home while a tenant's jeonse deposit covers most of the price — saying he had bought it to live in.
Lee made the remarks at a confirmation hearing before the National Assembly's Economy and Finance Planning Committee, addressing the fact that he lived in the apartment for only four months during the 17 years he owned it.
"Around January 2009, while I was living in Pyeongchon, I was notified that I would be working at the presidential office, and because the job required leaving for work before dawn, I quickly secured a jeonse (a Korean lease system requiring a large lump-sum deposit instead of monthly rent) home in Gwacheon that February," Lee said. "I later bought an apartment that I could afford and actually live in, but because I had already secured and moved into a jeonse home in Gwacheon, I could not move in right away."
Circumstances that made it difficult for him to live in the apartment continued after that, according to Lee's side. Lee moved his residence to Daejeon in December 2012 when the Ministry of Economy and Finance relocated to Sejong, and from 2015 he spent three years on overseas assignment at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). For the remaining periods, he rented homes in Anyang and Gwacheon in Gyeonggi Province and in Seoul.
On buying the apartment while a jeonse tenant was in place, he said, "The purchase price was 420 million won and the jeonse deposit was about 110 million won," adding that he "bought it without any loans."
"As someone who has owned just one home my whole life, I held it for a long time and wanted to keep living there, but circumstances made that difficult," he said.
