Defect Repair Deposit and Insurance Premium for a New Home Warranty in Korea

Disputes due to defects in newly built houses are increasing worldwide. A house builder is responsible for repairing any defects in a newly built house. However, since house builders’ risk of closure and bankruptcy are increasing due to aggravated disputes and economic crises, builders may become insolvent and fail to perform defect repairs. In preparation for this, many countries have established defect repair deposit or guaranty insurance systems; however, the standards for these systems are not based an objective evidence since the current standards were arbitrarily established during industrialization. It has been pointed out that Korea’s housing defect repair deposit has been set excessively high and is being abused in disputes. Based on dispute cases in Korea, this study analyzed housing construction costs, deposits, and defect repair costs, resulting from lawsuits due to defects. The results confirmed that the defect repair deposit has been set too high compared to incurred defect repair costs. In addition, it was found that the guaranty insurance premium in lieu of the housing defect repair deposit was excessive compared to the damage caused by builder insolvency. In order to improve this, in this study, we proposed two alternative plans in which the housing defect repair deposit was set at a certain percentage of the construction cost based on the current Korean standard. In addition, based on the concept of different deposit levels using the scale of housing construction, such as in Australia and Canada, two additional alternative plans with different deposit ratios for each scale of housing construction were presented. The comparison results for housing defect repair deposits and guaranty insurance premiums based on the four presented alternative plans accompanied by actual cases showed that all the alternative plan deposits were higher than the actual defect repair costs. Even in the case of a guaranty insurance premium, the level was at least twice as high as the damage caused by builder insolvency. Therefore, all the alternative plans can fulfill their original role of protecting homeowners in the case of builder insolvency. At the same time, reducing the guaranty insurance premium to reflect the cost of housing construction is possible, and would benefit both house builders and home buyers. The results of this study are valuable as a reference for other countries considering establishing or revising a housing defect repair deposit system. Specifically, these findings, which analyzed the case of Korea’s socioeconomic changes as it transitioned from a developing country to a developed country, can provide important information for many developing countries operating housing defect repair deposit policies and systems.