This guide covers ordinary deposit return disputes — a landlord who is slow, evasive, or simply refuses to return a lease deposit (보증금) once the lease term ends. It's a different problem from an outright jeonse fraud scheme, where a landlord never intended to return the deposit at all and may be judgment-proof or have vanished by the time you realize it; if that's your situation, see our separate guide on jeonse deposit scams. What follows is for the far more common scenario: a landlord who exists, has the money, and is simply dragging their feet.

→The Landlord's Obligation Is Not Optional

Under the Housing Lease Protection Act (주택임대차보호법, jutaek imdaecha bohobeop), a landlord must return the full deposit (보증금) — minus any properly documented deductions for damage beyond normal wear and tear or unpaid rent — at the end of the lease term. This applies equally to jeonse (전세), the large lump-sum deposit arrangement with no monthly rent, and wolse (월세), a smaller deposit paired with monthly rent. "We haven't found a new tenant yet" is a landlord's practical excuse, not a legal defense — the obligation to return the deposit (보증금) exists independently of whether the unit has been re-leased.

→Your Right to Stay Until You're Paid: Simultaneous Performance (동시이행)

Korean law treats moving out and receiving your deposit (보증금) as a simultaneous performance (동시이행, dongsi ihaeng) obligation — meaning you generally aren't required to hand over the keys and vacate before the deposit is actually paid. In practice, this gives a tenant real leverage: you can decline to fully vacate (while still cooperating reasonably, such as allowing viewings) until payment is made, rather than moving out first and hoping to collect afterward.

→Protecting Your Priority: Fixed Date (확정일자) and the Lease Registration Order (임차권등기명령)

Two protections matter enormously if your landlord's finances turn out to be shakier than they appear:

Moving out before securing a lease registration order (임차권등기명령) is one of the most common mistakes tenants make — it can quietly cost you the priority that was protecting your deposit (보증금) all along.

→Escalating When the Landlord Still Won't Pay

  1. Send a certified content-proof letter (내용증명, naeyong jeungmyeong) formally demanding return of the deposit (보증금) by a specific date — this creates a clear paper trail and often prompts payment on its own
  2. File for a lease registration order (임차권등기명령) if you need to move before payment, to lock in your priority claim first
  3. File a payment order (지급명령, jigeup myeongnyeong) or small claims case for the unpaid deposit amount — for deposits under the small claims threshold, this is often faster and cheaper than a standard civil suit; see our guide on small claims court in Korea for how that process works
  4. Enforce a judgment against the property if the landlord still doesn't pay after a court order, using your fixed date (확정일자) priority to reach proceeds if the property is sold or auctioned

→What Landlords Can and Can't Deduct

A landlord can generally deduct unpaid rent, unpaid utility charges billed to the tenant, and the cost of repairing damage beyond normal wear and tear — but not the cost of ordinary aging, minor scuffs, or wear that comes from ordinary living. Deductions should be itemized and, ideally, supported by photos or receipts; a landlord who withholds a large, unexplained lump sum without documentation is on weak legal ground, and that gap is exactly what a demand letter or small claims filing is built to expose.

→What to Do If Your Deposit (보증금) Isn't Being Returned

A landlord's deposit (보증금) obligation is one of the more strongly protected tenant rights in Korean law — the practical difficulty is almost always enforcement timing, not the underlying legal entitlement.