Namyangju Civil Attorney | Helped a Regional Housing Association Member Recover the Full Down Payment

A regional housing project lawsuit refers to a regional housing association lawsuit, that is, a 🔗regional housing association lawsuit filed to resolve disputes arising in connection with a regional housing project.

A regional housing association is a project in which owners of small housing units and persons without housing who reside in the same metropolitan city, city, or county establish an association under the Housing Act, secure land in a specific area, and build apartments.

Unlike ordinary redevelopment or reconstruction, it takes the form of residents directly forming an association and carrying out the project.

To join a regional housing association, a person must pay a membership fee, and as the project progresses, additional contributions are paid.

A regional housing association proceeds through stages such as reporting member recruitment, approval of association establishment, approval of the project plan, commencement of construction and sale, and liquidation and dissolution of the association.

To join a regional housing association, a person must fall under one of the following: a person without housing, an owner of housing of 85m² or less, or a person who has resided for at least six months in the same or a neighboring area.

Representative types of regional housing association lawsuits include the following: ▲member eligibility, ▲contract termination, ▲return of contributions, and ▲problems with the project approval process.

At the time of concluding the association membership contract in this case, the client and the defendant entered into an agreement stating, 'We undertake to refund the full member contribution if the project approval is not completed within one year after approval of the association establishment during the course of the above project.'

The legal character of the regional housing project promotion committee is that of a non-incorporated association, and the contributions paid by its members constitute the property of the non-incorporated association, belonging to the collective ownership of the members.

If there are no articles of association or regulations, action must be taken by resolution of the general meeting of members, so unless otherwise provided in the articles of association or regulations, an act of managing or disposing of collectively owned property without a resolution of the general meeting of members is void.

Such an agreement, when the stated condition is fulfilled, returns the member contributions that are collectively owned property of the members, so it cannot be regarded as a mere act of assuming a debt and constitutes an act that reduces the collectively owned property itself.

The refund-guarantee letter of undertaking that the association issued to its members presupposes an act of disposing of the property of an association that has not yet been established.

Because the letter of undertaking prepared before the establishment of the association was made without the approval of the association's general meeting, it constitutes a disposal by a person without authority and is void.

The Namyangju Attorney emphasized that the refund-guarantee letter of undertaking prepared before the establishment of the association has no legal effect and that the member's demand for the return of contributions cannot be accepted, stressing that the association membership contract in this case is void.

The civil attorney argued that, because the letter-of-undertaking agreement in this case is void, the association membership contract in this case is also void.

To prove that this contract is void, the civil attorney cited a recent Supreme Court precedent as evidence.