Aggregate buildings are ubiquitous in Korea. Accordingly, regulations were established in both public and private laws to ensure efficient management. Housing Act, Rental Housing Act, and Building Act are examples of such public laws while Civil Act (Article 215) and the Act on the Ownership and Management of Aggregate Building, a special civil law, (abbreviated as Aggregate Building Act), are current private laws in the legal system.
Housing Act was enacted to promote housing stability and standards in Korea. It establishes when and how to supply funds for necessary housing construction and its management. (see Housing Act Article 1). To attain this purpose, certain regulations in Housing Act allow a principal agent to supply and manage houses simultaneously. However, in Aggregate Building Act, regulations are written in a sectional owner"s perspective.
Clearly, management regulations in both public and private laws overlap and create confusion. A holistic aggregate building management is, therefore, required but as of yet the system is still behind the times. One may think that both regulations are needed because they are different in their legal substances; one deals it in the standpoint of a principal agent while the other focuses on the viewpoint of a divided ownership.
However, critics, in view of aggregate building management, contest that legal regulation should not be different in this same management case. Hence, this paper discusses on this raised jurisdictional problem.
To solve this legislative problem properly, this study defines legal concepts and terms of aggregate building management. Aggregate building is a general concept and thus apartment houses and shopping center, in this sense, are the types of aggregate building. Furthermore, to provide legislative measures for a special act on aggregate building management, case studies in Japan whose legal structure in terms of Housing Act is very similar to Korea, are used in this dissertation.
From this, the research includes institutional implementation measures to unify legal system of aggregate buildings management. Moreover, it contends to legislate the Special Act on Aggregate Building Management (tentatively named) to eliminate legal overlaps between private laws and public laws. Not only this, it suggests to establish the administration committee such as Aggregate Building Management Support Center (tentatively named) that is exclusively responsible for the administrative issues.
The aggregate building management problem must be studied further. Since legal disputes inevitably arise even in a community with efficient management, establishing effective dispute settlement can be a first step. In addition, "Sell First, Build After" policy must be re-investigated and legal studies on responsibilities of a constructer and a person who parcels should be conducted to prevent further conflicts.