Your Tenant Stopped Paying — and You're Abroad

You own an apartment or a house in Korea — bought while you lived here, inherited, or kept when you left — and the rent has stopped. Messages go unanswered, or come back with promises. From another time zone, every option looks slow and every month costs you money. The Korean system does give a landlord real tools; the point of this guide is to show which ones work from where you are, in what order, and where they genuinely require someone in Korea.

The framework is the Civil Act (민법) on leases, the Housing Lease Protection Act (주택임대차보호법) that overlays it for homes, and the Civil Execution Act for the end of the road. Tenants in Korea are well protected — but the protections have a clear edge, and unpaid rent is where it sits.

One idea organises everything below: the deposit is a clock. Act while it still covers you.

1. What the deposit does — and doesn’t

A Korean lease deposit (bojeunggeum) (보증금)secures the tenant’s obligations: unpaid rent, unpaid utilities, damage beyond normal wear. When the lease ends, those sums are deducted and the balance returned. That is the deposit’s whole job — and it is why a stopped rent is less alarming than it feels at first: for a while, you are being paid out of money already in your hands.

It is also why waiting is expensive. A wolse (월세)deposit on a monthly lease is often only a few months’ rent; once arrears exceed it, every further month is an unsecured debt against a tenant who has already shown they do not pay. The deposit does not oblige you to wait until it runs out, and nothing in the law treats a tenant as current while the deposit absorbs the shortfall. Watch the ratio of arrears to deposit — it is the number that should drive your timing.

2. Terminating the lease: the two-months’ rent rule

For a building lease, the landlord may terminate once the tenant’s arrears reach the amount of two periods’ rent(Civil Act art. 640). The test is the total, not a streak: a tenant who pays half for four months reaches two months’ worth just as surely as one who pays nothing for two. Reaching it is what unlocks termination; it is not automatic — you must declare termination, and the declaration must reach the tenant to take effect (Civil Act art. 111).

The same threshold removes the tenant’s strongest protections. A tenant who has fallen two months’ rent behind cannot force a renewal (Housing Lease Protection Act art. 6-3(1)1), and the automatic renewal that normally catches a silent landlord does not apply to them (art. 6(3)). In practice this means a landlord abroad who missed the usual notice window is not trapped in another term by a non-paying tenant.

Send the termination in a form that proves receipt — in Korea that is certified content mail (내용증명), which your attorney can send from Korea on your behalf: a formal declaration that creates a dated record of termination and demand; it sometimes prompts payment or a move-out, but it cannot compel either. Its drafting and effects are covered in Certified Content Mail (내용증명).

3. Getting the tenant out: the eviction lawsuit

A terminated lease does not empty the apartment. If the tenant stays, the only lawful route is a suit for delivery of the premises (myeongdo sosong) (명도소송) — a civil lawsuit asking the court to order the tenant to hand the property back, usually combined with the claim for arrears. Korean civil litigation runs through an electronic filing system, and your attorney conducts it under a power of attorney; your presence is not required for the filing or the hearings.

1. 1

   Freeze the occupancy first

   A provisional disposition prohibiting transfer of possession (점유이전금지가처분, Civil Execution Act art. 300) stops the tenant from passing the unit to someone else mid-case — without it, a new occupant can force you to start over.
2. 2

   File the suit for delivery, with the money claim

   Termination, arrears, and compensation for occupation after termination in one case. Expect months rather than weeks; a tenant who does not respond shortens it.
3. 3

   Judgment — then the bailiff

   A final judgment is executed by the court bailiff, who takes possession from the tenant and hands it to you (art. 258(1)). The creditor or a representative must attend the execution (art. 258(2)) — your attorney can.
4. 4

   The tenant’s belongings

   Goods left behind are removed by the bailiff and handed to the tenant or a household member; if nobody is there, they are stored at the tenant’s cost and, if unclaimed, sold with court permission (art. 258(3)–(6)). You do not get to dispose of them yourself.

4. Getting the money — and whether it’s worth it

Rent arrears are an ordinary money claim. For a tenant who has already left, a payment order is fast and inexpensive if the tenant does not contest; if they object, it becomes an ordinary lawsuit — worth starting only if you are prepared for that. For a tenant still in the unit, the money claim rides inside the eviction suit. A final title then opens enforcement against the tenant’s bank accounts or wages, covered in Enforcing a Judgment. Rent claims expire after 3 years (Civil Act art. 163) — a long enough window, but not an invitation to let the matter drift.

Before suing a departed tenant, set three numbers side by side: what is owed, what the deposit already covered, and what the tenant could actually pay.

Is a lawyer worth it? It depends on the amount.Where the arrears are a few million won and the deposit covers most of them, attorney fees for a contested claim can exceed what you recover — the honest move is often to deduct, document, and stop, keeping the small-claims track (claims of ₩30 million or less, a simplified procedure that may require attendance in person) in reserve. Where a tenant is still occupying, or the arrears have outgrown the deposit on a larger property, representation is usually a reasonable cost against what is at stake — the eviction itself is what stops the loss growing. We’ll tell you at the consultation if it isn’t worth it.

5. What can be done from abroad — and what needs you in Korea

Two things are genuinely yours to carry from abroad. The paperwork: a power of attorney in the form Korean courts accept takes time to notarise and legalise in your country, so start it before the tenant’s silence becomes an emergency. And the decisions: your attorney can act, but the choice between a settlement offer and a judgment, or between re-letting and selling, is one only you can make — which is why updates by email at each step matter more than they would for a client down the road.

6. Common mistakes

• Waiting for the deposit to run out.The two-months’ rule unlocks termination long before the deposit is gone; the deposit is security for the end, not a reason to delay the beginning.
• Terminating by chat message. A termination you cannot prove reached the tenant is a termination that may not exist. Use certified content mail.
• Accepting partial payments without a written reservation. Taking money is fine; taking it in a way that reads as agreeing to a new arrangement is not. Keep the arrears calculation and your position in writing.
• Skipping the provisional disposition. A tenant who sublets or hands the keys to a friend during the case can leave you with a judgment against the wrong person.
• Self-help. Locks, utilities, belongings — see the callout above. Every month of patience a court process costs is cheaper than a counterclaim.

Start with two figures — the arrears so far, and the deposit — and the date the tenant last paid. The sections above follow from them.

Frequently asked questions

Written by Attorney Chulho Choi (SOL & LUNA / Law Firm Myeong, KBA-registered specialist in Civil and Criminal Law). Reviewed as of October 2026. Updated when laws change.