Supreme Court rules renters with homes ineligible for priority sale
The court determined that tenants who owned other properties when signing leases cannot later claim priority purchase rights.
The Supreme Court ruled that tenants of returned public rental housing who owned other properties at the time of signing their lease contracts are not eligible for priority conversion to ownership. The decision, delivered April 30 in an unjust enrichment case, clarifies that the statutory requirement for applicants to be without a home must be met at the moment the rental agreement is executed.
The ruling rests on the legislative intent of the former Rental Housing Act and related enforcement decrees, which mandate that project operators verify a prospective tenant's non-homeownership status through computerized searches before finalizing any individual lease agreements. Because the law requires this verification prior to contract signing, a tenant who owns a home at that specific juncture fails the fundamental qualification criteria.
Consequently, the court found that even if a tenant subsequently loses ownership of their other property due to a consensual contract termination, their eligibility for priority sale conversion is not restored.
What this article is based on
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- Court ruling대법원 대법원 판결· Supreme Court· accessed Sept. 15, 2026
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