Gyeonggi governor urges senior officials to sell houses

Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung speaks during a press briefing at the provincial government building in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday Yonhap

By Bahk Eun-ji

Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung said Tuesday that civil servants of grade 4 or higher in the provincial government who own more than one home are strongly advised to sell any properties that are not their place of residence.

Starting next year, the real estate holdings of high-ranking government officials of the Gyeonggi provincial government will be reflected in their personal evaluations. It is the first time for a local government to take such a measure for high-ranking public officials who own multiple homes, which is stronger than the government's recommendation to officials of grade 2 or higher.

“We won't allow any public servants in the Gyeonggi provincial government to make money from speculative investments in real estate,” Lee said during a press conference at the government office in Suwon.

If public officials own multiple properties due to “unavoidable” reasons, they must resolve the situation within six months from the date of occurrence of the cause. In regard to personnel evaluations, the governor said some high-ranking government officials were already excluded from promotion due to their multiple home ownership.

Announcing the Comprehensive real estate measures for Gyeonggi Province, he said the move was in accordance with the Moon Jae-in administration's real estate policies to curb rising housing prices.

“Although it is difficult to come up with fundamental measures due to limitations of the role of local governments, we have prepared some major real estate measures in Gyeonggi Province and will do whatever we can to curb speculation,” Lee said.

The measures the government came up with include restriction on public officials' ownership of multiple properties, punitive taxation on non-residential homes, and increasing the supply of long-term public rental housing to curb speculative demand, and stronger taxation on property owners' unearned income.

“We should introduce drastic real estate taxation and basic income-type land taxes on the condition that the tax increase is fully refunded to the people as basic income.”