If your rights have been violated due to ‘no contact with the tenant’, you must file a lawsuit to take over the building.

Yonghwan Choi, Senior Attorney at Daeryun Law Firm (Limited) Legal Column

A building delivery lawsuit is a lawsuit in which a landlord requests delivery of a tenant who illegally occupies the property even though he or she has lost the right to occupy the property. Usually, a lawsuit is filed when the lessee continues to occupy the property without permission, such as △overdue rent, △delivery of the object due to expiration of the contract, etc.

If the tenant occupies the property without permission and does not vacate after a just termination of the contract, the landlord is bound to suffer great economic losses. In addition, due to legal protection for tenants, there are many cases where landlords suffer because they cannot simply demand eviction.

For example, there is a story of a landlord who waited for rent payment for several months considering the tenant's circumstances. The landlord sent several letters to the tenant requesting payment of overdue rent, but did not receive any response. Accordingly, a lawsuit was prepared as a last resort.

As a result of the lawsuit, the landlord was able to safely receive a decision to hand over the building. On the 8th of last month, the Changwon District Court ruled in favor of the landlord in the 'building delivery lawsuit' filed by the commercial landlord against the tenant for non-payment of monthly rent. The court ruled that “the lease agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant was legally terminated,” and that “the defendants had an obligation to deliver the building to the plaintiff.”

The issues in this lawsuit can be broadly divided into two. First, the first issue was ‘whether or not there are arrears’. The plaintiff and the defendant signed a lease agreement for the real estate in this case in 2020 with a rental deposit of 20 million won and a monthly rent of 1 million won. The defendants had delayed payment of rent due to financial difficulties, but the plaintiff delayed the payment date in consideration of the defendants' difficult circumstances. However, the plaintiff did not receive the monthly rent even though the promised date had passed. The increased monthly rent amounted to 9 months' worth, and the defendants did not even pay the commercial management fees.

The second is ‘notification of legal termination of lease contract’. According to Article 10, Paragraph 8 of the Commercial Lease Protection Act, if the rent arrears reach three periods, the landlord can immediately terminate the lease even if there is any remaining contract remaining. In the case of the plaintiff, the arrears had already reached the 9th period, and the contract termination was notified through proof of contents.

As the plaintiff's legal representative, he clearly presented the legal basis for the reason for contract termination and requested real estate listing based on this. Thanks to this, the plaintiff was able to have his right to claim the return of the object recognized as the owner of the property.

As in the case above, it is not difficult to see difficulties arising from the tenant's loss of contact in a rental contract relationship. At this time, caution is required as if the landlord does not respond appropriately, such as notifying the tenant who illegally occupies the real estate by notifying the tenant to terminate the contract or requesting eviction, the landlord may face backlash, such as being sued for damages.

Additionally, responding by blindly approaching the tenant or unilaterally notifying the termination without reviewing the contract termination conditions may become an obstacle to legal action in the future. Typically, real estate litigation can take several months, so it is necessary to draw up a strategy from the beginning with the advice of a real estate attorney.

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