Redevelopment and reconstruction associations at major Seoul project sites are increasingly filing eviction suits against every household in a district the moment relocation begins, a practice known as blanket eviction. The associations say the goal is to avoid the enormous cost of having a handful of holdouts stall a project at a time of high interest rates and surging construction costs. Critics counter that the tactic drags households already preparing to leave voluntarily into unnecessary legal disputes and stokes anxiety.
According to the redevelopment industry on the 16th, the association for Bukahyeon District 2 — a project in the Bukahyeon-dong area of Seoul's Seodaemun district that will be rebuilt into a 2,320-unit complex — plans to send notices warning that it will file eviction suits and injunctions barring transfer of possession against all residents and occupants in the district, ahead of the start of relocation on Nov. 9. The association says it will withdraw the suits immediately and waive litigation costs for households that move out within the voluntary relocation period, but will seek damages and court enforcement costs from those that delay.
The association for the Daekyo apartment complex, the first Yeouido project area to begin relocation, has also decided to file eviction suits and possession-transfer injunctions against all association members and tenants during a six-month relocation period that starts on the 1st of next month. Households that fail to vacate within the set period will be made to cover financing costs and increases in construction costs, as well as complex management fees incurred after the relocation period ends.
The blanket eviction approach has spread rapidly to major Seoul project sites since the Eunma apartment complex in Daechi-dong, Gangnam district, embraced it last month. Eunma, with 4,424 units, is targeting relocation in the first half of next year and drew attention by announcing it would preemptively file eviction suits, injunctions and damages claims against all tenants immediately after receiving project implementation approval.
Industry officials see blanket eviction as a strategy to shorten relocation periods now that major Seoul redevelopment and reconstruction projects have entered a race against the clock. "In the past there were plenty of sites where demolition took more than a year because a few households out of several thousand were slow to move, and the cost fell on every member of the association," one industry official said. "With the benchmark rate rising again, many members agree that cutting the timeline is the way to minimize financing costs."
Still, leading with litigation from the outset has produced friction. Eunma's warning of suits has angered some retail tenants and turned into a head-on confrontation. According to the industry, an emergency committee of Eunma's retail tenants is demanding hundreds of millions of won in relocation compensation and measures to protect their livelihoods, and has set up a watchtower on the roof and vowed to fight for their right to make a living — emerging as a variable in the project's progress.
Some sites are offering carrots in the form of relocation incentives rather than sticks such as eviction suits. The association for Noryangjin District 3, which begins relocation on the 13th of next month, has chosen the traditional route of paying 5 million won in relocation incentives to members who move out within the period, while Noryangjin District 1 is also pursuing voluntary relocation. "Pressuring residents to move through litigation can be a way to save time in the short run, but if it provokes an emotional backlash and leads to an extreme standoff, it could invite far greater project risk," another industry official said.
