Claim the deposit back, or sell at today’s price?
People searching for a golf membership deposit refund have usually reached the end of the lock-up period or just received notice of changed terms, rehabilitation or conversion to a public course.
When the traded price is far below the entrance deposit, selling now locks in that gap, while a refund claim costs time and legal fees and may suffer a lower recovery rate.
This Korea-specific calculator compares the refund claim, a market sale and keeping the membership, expressed as present values at the same reference date.
This calculator is based on Korean rules for 2026 (sources checked 2026-10-29) and amounts in KRW.
It does not predict litigation success, rehabilitation payouts or market prices, and it is not legal or tax advice.
Who this is for
- Members aged 50–70 whose original deposit is well above exchange prices
- Heirs who inherited a membership and want to settle it
- Members notified of rule changes, rehabilitation or auction
- Anyone deciding between a refund lawsuit and listing with an exchange
The legal structure of a deposit refund
Article 18 of the Sports Facilities Act requires operators that recruited members to follow decree rules protecting members, including deposit refunds.
Item 2 of Decree Article 19 leaves withdrawal and refund timing to the operator–member agreement, but lets existing members withdraw when member-rights terms change and requires refund without delay on request.
Item 3 requires a fixed-term member’s deposit to be refunded within 10 days of a request after the term ends.
What the deposit covers
The deposit is everything the first member paid the operator for membership rights.
Donations to statutory funds are excluded.
A member who bought on the secondary market should confirm the deposit principal in the rules separately from the purchase price.
The club rules come first
Decree Article 18(1)2 requires the recruitment terms to state refund timing and procedure.
Lock-up, application method and payment period are all in those terms, so prepare the original text first.
Keep any notice that the terms were changed against members.
How availability and the due date are calculated
Late-payment damages start the day after the due date, so getting the date right for each trigger matters most.
The calculator adds the lock-up in calendar years to the joining date; when there is no matching day, such as 29 February, it uses the month end.
Availability and due-date rules by refund trigger| Trigger | Available | Due | Basis | Added days |
|---|
| Request after lock-up | Joining date + lock-up | Later of availability and request + club payment period | Decree Art. 19 item 2 (agreement) | Club rule |
| Withdrawal after changed terms | Request date | Request date (without delay) | Decree Art. 19 item 2, latter part | 0 |
| Fixed-term membership expired | Request date | Request date + 10 days | Decree Art. 19 item 3 | 10 |
A request before the lock-up ends triggers a warning, and the due date is counted from the availability date instead.
The day count is from your entered request date to availability, not from today.
Late-payment damages: 6%, then 12% after a lawsuit
For a company-run course, the commercial statutory rate of 6% per year under Commercial Act Article 54 is the default.
A civil rate of 5% under Civil Act Article 379 is available for the rare non-merchant operator.
After a refund lawsuit, 12% applies from the day after the complaint is served under Litigation Promotion Act Article 3(1) and its rate decree.
Damages are principal × rate × days ÷ 365, rounded down to the won.
Late-payment damages by period for an illustrative KRW 200 million deposit| Period | Dates | Days | Rate | Amount |
|---|
| Commercial statutory rate | 2026-12-03 to 2027-03-02 | 90 | 6% | KRW 2,958,904 |
| Litigation rate | 2027-03-03 to 2027-12-31 | 304 | 12% | KRW 19,989,041 |
| Total | 2026-12-03 to 2027-12-31 | 394 | - | KRW 22,947,945 |
Article 3(2) disapplies 12% to the extent the debtor reasonably contested the existence or scope of the obligation.
Read the 12% period as an upper scenario rather than a guaranteed judgment amount.
Longer litigation adds interest, but the club’s ability to pay may weaken in the meantime.
To recompute damages at other rates, use the late-payment interest calculator, and estimate court fees and service costs with the lawsuit cost calculator.
Recovery paths by course status
Operating normally
If the club does not pay by the due date, demand payment by certified mail and consider a lawsuit.
Start with a 100% recovery rate and compare time and cost.
Acquired at auction or sale
Under Sports Facilities Act Article 27(2), anyone acquiring the essential facilities through auction, rehabilitation sale or seized-asset sale succeeds to existing member agreements.
Consider the new operator as the counterparty.
Rehabilitation
The refund claim must be filed as a rehabilitation claim; late supplementary filing is barred after the creditors’ meeting ends (Article 152(3)).
After approval, rights not in the plan are discharged (Article 251), so enter the plan’s payout rate and period.
In rehabilitation the plan governs post-commencement interest, so late-payment damages are set to zero and principal × payout rate is assumed to be paid in equal annual instalments.
Instalments are in whole won and any remainder goes into the last one.
Plans that pay in use rights or shares instead of cash are not valued here.
Net sale proceeds and capital gains tax
Net sale proceeds are the exchange-confirmed expected price minus brokerage, the name-transfer fee you pay, and capital gains tax with local income tax.
A golf membership is a facility-use right under Income Tax Act Article 94(1)4(b), an other asset taxed at basic rates of 6–45% regardless of holding period under Article 104(1)1.
The tax uses the same function as Mowatool’s golf membership tax calculator, so both pages agree.
Original members versus buyers
An original member who paid a KRW 200 million deposit and sells for KRW 120 million has a loss and owes no tax.
A buyer who paid KRW 80 million and sells for KRW 120 million deducts the 2.2% acquisition tax and fees, then the KRW 2.5 million basic deduction, and pays tax.
The basic deduction is shared with other land, building and other-asset disposals in the same year, so actual tax can be higher.
Keeping and using the membership before exiting
The holding path discounts an annual net benefit of rounds × green-fee saving minus the annual fee, received at each year end.
At the end you can exit by a refund claim at the same recovery rate or by selling at today’s price.
No price forecast is used, so a later sale is not a prediction of rising or falling prices.
Frequent players may find holding better than an immediate claim, but the recovery rate can fall if the club’s finances worsen.
Rerun the holding path with a lower recovery rate to stay safe.
Reading the break-even recovery rate
The break-even recovery rate makes the refund path’s present value equal to today’s net sale proceeds.
The calculator varies recovery between 0% and 100%, recomputes principal, damages, tax and costs, and finds the crossing point to two decimals.
If your realistic recovery is above this rate, the refund claim leads; below it, selling leads.
If even 100% recovery trails the sale, the page says the sale leads even at 100% recovery.
That happens when legal costs are high, collection is slow or the discount rate is high.
A refund that leads even at 0% is very unusual, so recheck your inputs.
Illustrative worked example
KRW 200 million deposit, KRW 120 million price
Joining on 2019-03-15 with a five-year lock-up makes the refund available on 2024-03-15.
Requesting on 2026-11-02 with a 30-day club payment period makes 2026-12-02 the due date.
With service on 2027-03-02, collection on 2027-12-31 and KRW 6,000,000 legal costs, damages are KRW 22,947,945 and estimated withholding is KRW 5,048,547.
Nominal net receipt is KRW 211,899,398, and the present value at 3.5% is KRW 203,430,831.
Selling the same day for KRW 120 million with KRW 1.2 million fees gives an original member net proceeds of KRW 118,800,000 with no tax.
Holding for three years with 12 rounds a year, a KRW 150,000 saving per round and a KRW 600,000 annual fee, then claiming the refund, gives KRW 183,733,505.
The break-even recovery rate is 59.58%, so the refund claim leads if you expect to recover more than that.
All figures are illustrative and are not market prices or court outcomes.
Two tax points that are easy to miss
Damages can be other income
Income Tax Act Article 21(1)10 and Decree Article 41(8) treat compensation beyond the original payment itself as other income.
The deposit principal does not exceed what you paid, but damages on top of it can qualify.
The calculator deducts an estimated 22% withholding (20% national, 2% local); final tax depends on whether it is aggregated.
Refund tax stays an assumption
Income Tax Act Article 88 defines a transfer as a paid, de facto transfer of an asset.
The calculator does not decide whether a refund qualifies and offers both a conservative and a non-taxable setting.
Buyers who paid less than the deposit should confirm treatment with a tax adviser.
How to use it
- Enter the deposit, lock-up and post-request payment period from the club rules.
- Choose the trigger and planned request date, then course status and recovery rate.
- If considering a lawsuit, add service date, collection date and expected costs.
- Enter expected prices and fees from at least two exchanges, plus your acquisition cost.
- Add rounds, green-fee saving, annual fee and discount rate, then compare the three paths.
- Check the break-even rate and warnings, then save the TXT review for your adviser.
Condo and resort memberships follow a different legal regime; use the condo membership vs hotel break-even calculator instead.
Frequently asked questions
Must the club refund the deposit as soon as the lock-up ends?
Timing and procedure follow the membership terms (club rules).
Item 2 of Article 19 of the Sports Facilities Act Enforcement Decree leaves the refund of a withdrawing member’s deposit to the agreement between the operator and the member.
If the rules say the club pays within a stated number of days after a request, delay starts the day after that period, so enter those days as the club payment period.
Can I get the deposit back before the lock-up if the club changed the terms?
If member-rights terms change after you joined, an existing member may withdraw, and the club must refund without delay when the withdrawing member asks.
Whether a conversion to a public course or a less favourable use condition qualifies depends on the notice and the rules.
Choosing the changed-terms trigger makes the request date the due date.
Why are late-payment damages split into 6% and 12%?
A deposit refund owed by a company operator is generally treated as a commercial obligation, so Commercial Act Article 54 applies 6% per year.
After a lawsuit, the Litigation Promotion Act Article 3 and its rate decree can apply 12% from the day after the complaint is served.
If a court finds the operator had reasonable grounds to contest the claim, 12% does not apply to that extent.
How should I set the recovery rate?
For a solvent club operating normally, keep 100% and compare timing only.
If finances are weak or many refund suits are pending, lower it to reflect your own view of collection risk.
In rehabilitation, enter the cash payout rate of the approved plan; this page does not estimate or recommend that figure.
Does the deposit disappear if the course is sold at auction?
Article 27(2) of the Sports Facilities Act applies paragraph 1 to anyone who acquires the essential facilities through court auction, a rehabilitation sale, or a sale of assets seized for national or local taxes.
The acquirer therefore succeeds to the agreements with existing members.
The counterparty and the scope of succession depend on the procedure and the rules, so confirm them with a lawyer.
How much tax applies when I sell the membership?
A golf membership is a facility-use right under Income Tax Act Article 94(1)4(b) and is an other asset.
Basic progressive rates of 6–45% apply regardless of holding period, after a KRW 2.5 million annual basic deduction, plus 10% local income tax.
An original member selling below the deposit usually has no gain and pays zero.
Is receiving the deposit back also subject to capital gains tax?
A transfer means a paid, de facto transfer of an asset, and a refund can be viewed as collecting a claim, but this calculator does not rely on a settled interpretation.
The default therefore treats the recovered principal as transfer proceeds, and you may switch to a non-taxable assumption after tax advice.
Original members have cost equal to the deposit, so there is no tax either way.
What is the risk of delaying the refund request?
Commercial claims prescribe after five years under Commercial Act Article 64.
The calculator shows five years after the availability date as a reference boundary and warns when your request date is later.
The starting point and interruption events depend on the facts, so act quickly with certified mail and a lawsuit if the boundary is near.
Official sources and rule versions
Sources were checked on 2026-10-29 through Korea’s National Law Information Open API.
Versions: Sports Facilities Act effective 2026-07-29, its Decree 2026-03-26, Commercial Act 2026-09-10 and Litigation Promotion Act 2026-06-02.
Club rules, rehabilitation plans and prices are user inputs, and no case law is used to decide results.
- Sports Facilities Act Articles 17, 18 and 27 · recruitment, protection, succession after auction
- Enforcement Decree Articles 18 and 19 · refund clause, changed-terms withdrawal, 10 days for fixed-term members
- Commercial Act Articles 54 and 64 · 6% commercial rate, five-year prescription
- Litigation Promotion Act Article 3 and rate decree · 12% from the day after service
- Civil Act Articles 379 and 387 · 5% civil rate, timing of default
- Income Tax Act Articles 21, 88, 94, 104 and 129 · other income, transfer, other-asset rates
- Debtor Rehabilitation Act Articles 152 and 251 · late filing limits, discharge after approval
Compare now with your club rules and a price quote
Whether a refund claim or a sale is better depends on availability, litigation time, recovery rate and price.
Enter your rules and exchange quotes above and check the break-even recovery rate.
Save the TXT review and discuss it with a lawyer or tax adviser before sending certified mail or listing the membership.