A building owned by first-generation girl group member SES's Shoo is facing a financial crisis after she was sentenced to probation for overseas gambling.
The March 16 broadcast of 'MBC's News Desk,' reported the financial issues on Shoo's building and its tenants.
In Korea, renters will usually pay a Jeonse or deposit to property owners and live at that space without a monthly rent. The property owners will invest this money, which is usually 50 to 80% of the property's value and then pay back the deposit to the renter when they leave the property. However, Shoo's building is having financial trouble and cannot pay back the tenants their deposit.
Tenant Kim borrowed around 92 million KRW (~74,800 USD) to pay Shoo a deposit of 115 million KRW (~93,000 USD) to rent a spot in her building. He said, "At the time of the contract, Shoo appeared a lot on TV, and the amount of loan was small, so I didn't think there would be much of a problem." The couple was planning to move to a bigger apartment as they had a child and now Kim and other tenants who had borrowed money to pay the deposits were reportedly told they would not be able to get back their deposits. This is due to Shoo being unable to find new tenants for her building as the creditor who lent Shoo money for gambling purposes have completed a provisional seizure of the building.
Two other tenants in the building stated they left without receiving their deposit back. They were told that Shoo didn't have the financial means to pay back their deposits.
Shoo’s representatives stated in response that they will resolve the issues with the tenants as soon as they win their lawsuit to cancel the provisional seizure made by Shoo’s creditor. The representative stated: “We are working hard and will continue to work hard to resolve these problems.”
Yikes, monthly payments seem like a better system in light of this outcome.
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