Finding Rents in Korea(NEW 2020)_Part 3
From moving-in process to after moving-in process.
The last but not the least, this very last section of renting guide will introduce typical moving-in methods and what to do after moving-in which relates what administrative measures you need to do and what are your rights as a tenant. So don’t loosen up your mind till the last! The information will surely help with the circumstances you are about to face as a freshly new tenant.
The following contents are:
How to move in
- Hiring moving agency
- delivery truck / driver
- Doing it yourself
What to do after moving in
- Reporting the change in residence
- How to pay the bills
- Tenant rights: How to resolve problems when something breaks
Let’s get down to it!
How to move in
There are three different ways of moving in; hiring moving agency for the full process, call for a delivery truck with driver assist or just doing it yourself. All three options are common and your choice will depend on how much belonging you have.
Hiring a moving agency
This choice is common among families who are moving into new house. So for those who are planning to move to new house as a family can consider this as the best option. The agency help from packing to unpacking and they will even places your furnitures to the exact same place where it used to be in your old home. They will fully arrange workers and trucks for you and the price is all included in the payment. Factors that determine the price depends on how far your house is from the moving in house and how much belongings you have. Also, the price varies in each agency, so it’s better for you to contact several and chose the one with the more reasonable price or probably get recommendations from friends.
Delivery truck / Driver
If your belongings are not much but still think you might need truck for the moving-out then you can order delivery truck where the service includes the driver. Normally delivery truck companies offers two options; one is the driver only helps you out with putting packed belongings into the truck and getting it off at the destination, the other is the driver helps you out with the whole packing process and the arranging process at the new place. For the charge, the former option is much cheaper. Other factors determining the price is similar to moving agencies mentioned above.
Doing it yourself
If you have a car or know someone who has car and willing to help you, this is the option you want to go for, especially when you don’t really have much stuff. Many who live alone and moving into villas go for this choice.
What to do after moving in
Reporting the change in residence
There’s one last step for the administrative procedure, you need to notify your change in residence to the local district Community Service Center or Immigration Office within 14 days, if you don’t you will be fined.
The Community Service Center , so-called ‘dong’ office, locates at each administrative ‘dong’ district. The documents you need to bring are the lease contract, passport and ARC. If you are not moving in alone then all the members of the household also need to report the change. After reporting the change, you’ll get the qualification for signing up for ‘hwak-jeong-il-ja’ , a way to protect your deposit. For hwak-jeong-il-ja, you can also get it at the dong office, so it’s best to visit dong office and sort them all out on the same day. Once you are done with these, you are good to go!
How to pay the bills
We have mentioned how to pay the bills briefly at the first post of this series. To look into it in more details you need to know what’s included in your general utility bills and in what terms the payment is to be made.
Bills you need to pay are electricity, gas and water, if one of them are included in general utility bill which you pay to the landlord, that particular bill won’t come to your house. Bills normally comes to your postbox on yellow rectangular forms. They will come every month separately and each bill has different due date. The total amount is shown on the top of the form and for the account where you transact the money is written at the bottom of the form. There will be couple of accounts listed, you just need to chose one that’s most convenient for you.
As for the ones who made the contract term where landlord informs you with utility bills manually, they will not get the yellow bills, instead the landlord will give you separate bill where you transact the money to he or she’s account. In this case, it’s difficult to check on what ground the bill is calculated, so ask for detailed statement for your use of gas, electricity and water.
Tenant rights: How to resolve problems when something breaks
You need to be informed of what rights you have as a tenant, otherwise you will spend money on resolving the matters which isn’t part of your responsibility as a tenant. The chart below shows some of the main tenant rights and cases based on rent types. Check it out!
For the circumstances mentioned above, without exception, the landlord has to take care of them, except for the key money rent’s wall papering. This is because those problems are almost never the fault of the tenants, it’s the innate problem of the house deriving from the way that it is. But, of course, for other reasons, if you damage the property whether intended or not, you will have to make compensations for the damage.
As for the monthly rent type, we’ve mentioned on the second post that the rent come with some furnitures or the machines like closets, washing machine, air conditioner, refrigerator. If these somehow how breaks out of blue, the landlord has to fix it for you. Again, if it’s clear that the tenant is the one to blame for, then the tenant will have to pay for the damage.
It’s best to not have any problems, but always something comes up unexpectedly. It’s better to know the rights and who is to blame.
Here are some tips. When you call for mechanics to solve the matters, contact the landlord first and get the confirmation that they will pay you back the money after or sometimes many landlords would offer they’ll contact the mechanics for you, either way you need to make sure.
Congrats, you’ve come this far to get complete knowledge of renting in Korea! If you find this post useful, follow and like our page ‘ADAPKO’ and get more information on living in Korea. You can add your comments if you liked the post or have tips that wasn’t covered here. Either way, show us what you think!
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