Gyeonggi Province Refers Six to Prosecution for KakaoTalk Apartment Price-Fixing and Obstruction of Real Estate Agents in Hanam
Gyeonggi Province has referred six individuals to the prosecution on charges of colluding to fix apartment sale prices in an organized manner.
On May 22, Gyeonggi Province announced that it had sent six owners of Apartment Complex A in Hanam City to the prosecution for violating the Licensed Real Estate Agents Act. They are accused of using a private KakaoTalk open chat room to systematically collude on apartment sale prices and disrupt the business activities of licensed real estate agents.
According to the investigation, the suspects operated a private group chat room with 179 owner participants, where they set a price floor and strictly controlled property listings. After announcing guidelines of 1.1 billion won for sales and 650 million won for jeonse (long-term deposit lease), they prohibited the registration of properties below those prices.
Licensed real estate agents who advertised legitimate properties below the established price floor became targets of concentrated attacks.
The suspects engaged in what is known as "sharing coordinates," submitting 73 false reports to Hanam City Hall and 84 false reports to KISO, the Naver Real Estate False Listings Reporting Center, against legitimate listings, thereby carrying out indiscriminate group reporting.
Upon review, it was found that none of the reports made by the suspects involved actual false listings.
Their criminal activities were carried out in an organized fashion. The ringleader, identified as Mr. A, took charge of strategy and agitation, creating and distributing group complaint templates and leading focused attacks against particular real estate agents.
Mr. B, who was responsible for managing listings, designated targets for reporting, managed properties using Excel, and even taught participants how to make anonymous complaint calls by restricting caller ID or using virtual numbers.
Mr. C led bombarding complaints and phone harassment, while Mr. D maliciously disparaged market prices by singling out specific businesses. Mr. E used the AI chatbot ChatGPT to generate complaint forms and encouraged group reporting among chat room participants.
These actions constitute a clear violation of Article 33 of the Licensed Real Estate Agents Act, as they used notices and online communities to restrict brokerage requests to certain licensed real estate agents or to prevent requests below specific prices. They were also charged with obstructing the legitimate advertising activities of licensed real estate agents without just cause.
Victim F, a licensed real estate agent, testified that he suffered severe psychological distress and was unable to perform his normal work due to persistent threatening calls late into the night.
In fact, as a result of the reports, advertisements for the relevant properties were blocked on Naver Real Estate, resulting in brokerage requests being suspended and causing tangible damage. The blocking of low-priced property advertisements also led to an artificial increase in local real estate prices.
Kim Yongjae, Director of Land Information at Gyeonggi Province, stated, "This case is a representative example of organized price-fixing and obstruction of real estate agents' work using online communities. We will thoroughly pursue and investigate illegal activities that disrupt order in the real estate market."
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Meanwhile, Gyeonggi Province is also investigating a case in the Yongin area where licensed real estate agents formed a social club, prohibited joint transactions with non-member agencies, and created an exclusive cartel. The members are accused of visiting member agencies in person to block transactions with non-members and expelling violators, thereby undermining fair competition. The province plans to refer three executives of the club to the prosecution next month. Going forward, Gyeonggi Province will actively share its accumulated investigative techniques and digital evidence analysis experience with relevant agencies and further strengthen its joint response system with the government for similar cases.
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