[Exclusive] "My Stamp Wasn't Used, But It Appeared on the Consent Form?"... Legal Controversy Surrounds Hongje-dong Moatown

The Dark Side of Moa Town's Race Against Time

Hongje-dong 322 Area in Seodaemun-gu

Consent Forms Submitted to the District Office with Unauthorized Fingerprints

District Office: "Consent Forms Excluded from Approval Rate After Later O

The 'Moa Town' project, one of Seoul's key low-rise residential redevelopment initiatives, has become embroiled in controversy over procedural violations, including the submission of false consent forms and dubious amendments to its articles of association. Amid intensifying allegations of forged signatures, a general meeting was held to establish the homeowners' association, and an application for approval was submitted to the district office.

Hongje-dong 322 Moa Town. Screenshot from the Seoul city official website.

According to an investigation by The Asia Business Daily on August 12, in the Hongje-dong 322 Moa Town project zone in Seodaemun District, there have been indications of illegal activities such as unauthorized stamping and proxy drafting of association establishment consent forms. In addition, there are allegations of adding problematic clauses to the articles of association.

The area around 322 Hongje-dong is a hilly and rocky terrain located near Ansan. In December 2024, the Seoul Metropolitan Government designated this 39,442-square-meter site as a target for a public-participation Moa Town project in partnership with LH (Korea Land & Housing Corporation), planning to build approximately 883 apartment units with a floor area ratio of about 250% and a maximum height of 19 stories.

The LH participation-based Moa Town Promotion Committee in the Hongje-dong 322 zone held a general meeting for association formation on May 15, 2026. Previously, in December 2025, the committee submitted consent forms to the district office, claiming to have achieved a 77.6% consent rate among land and property owners, and after the May general meeting, applied for approval to establish the association.

The primary issue is that the Promotion Committee included fabricated consent forms with unauthorized use of other people's names and seals when submitting the documents to the district office.

According to Article 23, Paragraph 1 of the Special Act on the Maintenance of Vacant Houses and Small-scale Housing (Small-scale Housing Maintenance Act), which serves as the legal basis for Moa Town development, the establishment of an association requires written consent from at least 75% of land and property owners before a founding meeting can be held. In Moa Town and other redevelopment projects, consent must be documented in a written form signed with the owner's handwritten name and seal stamp, along with a mandatory copy of a valid identification document such as a resident registration card or passport.

In response, a Promotion Committee representative stated, "This is not true," and added, "Unless the informant reveals their specific identity, we cannot verify the facts."

However, contrary to the Promotion Committee's denial, Seodaemun District Office revealed, "After the general meeting, a resident raised the issue, explaining that they had not affixed their seal on the consent form, but the form had still been submitted to us. We have since confirmed this fact with both the resident and the committee and excluded the relevant consent form from the consent rate calculation."

Some residents have called for a complete investigation, saying, "We need to find out how many more fake consent forms exist." They also pointed out, "As of April, almost 30 withdrawal statements from association consent had been received by the district office, causing the approval rate to drop to 71%, yet the association founding meeting was still held."

A villa-dense area in Seoul where Moatown is promoting development. The Asia Business Daily database.

The district office stated, "We sent an official letter to the Promotion Committee requesting that they supplement the insufficient consent rate by August 14. Only after reviewing the results can we decide whether to approve the association's establishment." They also said they are "currently reviewing the validity of the general meeting in light of the insufficient consent rate."

Some residents also questioned the sudden changes to the articles of association right before the meeting. They said that the booklet distributed during consent collection in December 2025 did not contain clauses such as 'mandatory trust registration' and 'the party who loses a lawsuit bears the full legal costs,' but these restrictive provisions were included in the revised articles sent out before the founding meeting, which would severely limit ownership rights.

One resident argued, "Although this area is supposed to follow the public implementation model with LH as the main developer, the articles were amended to mandate trust registration, which is unrelated, and a fatal problematic clause fundamentally undermining members' rights to file lawsuits was included without residents' knowledge."

Controversy over poor management of Moa Town projects has been surfacing elsewhere as well. In April, the Seoul Northern District Court ruled in a dispute between the association for the Myeonmok Station Area 3-1 Street Housing Redevelopment in Jungnang District and Handa Construction, a co-executor of the Moa Town project. The court sided with the association, stating that contracts with co-executors were void due to a violation of mandatory provisions, as proper procedures for written consent (including name signature, seal, and ID copy) were not followed, and ordered the return of 734.03 million won.

The decisive point in this ruling was, again, that the requirements for written consent of members had not been properly met.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.