Housing lease: when opposing power takes effect
The single structural gap in Korean residential tenancy, and it is created by the statute rather than by anyone's mistake. A mortgage registered by the landlord takes its rank on the day it is registered; the tenant's opposing power does not exist until the following day. So a tenant who pays the balance, moves in and files on the same morning can still rank behind a mortgage registered that afternoon. Recorded because the gap drives the whole sequence of the balance-payment day.
- Applies to
- Residential tenants in Korea who have taken delivery of the property and completed resident registration, or the equivalent filing for foreign nationals
- Review cadence
- Checked once a year
What we have recorded
- 2026-10-08From the following day
Where a tenant has been delivered the housing and completed resident registration, the lease takes effect against third parties from the day after. Both limbs are required: paying the deposit in full is not delivery, and holding the contract is not registration. For a foreign national the registration limb is met by the stay-address report rather than by resident registration.
Housing Lease Protection Act, art. 3
One reading so far. This becomes a history the first time the figure moves while we are watching — which is the part that cannot be reconstructed later.