Jeonse deposit recovery: compare cash before choosing a procedure
When a Korean tenancy ends without repayment of the jeonse deposit, a household may need to fund both a move and the legal steps to recover its money.
The amount claimed does not show whether cash is available for a retainer or an enforcement deposit before any recovery arrives.
This calculator compares direct settlement, a finalized payment order, litigation after an objection to a payment order, and direct litigation over the same evaluation period.
Enter actual court payment notices and itemized legal quotes rather than an advertised average fee.
Separate recovered principal, interest and costs from dated expenses and borrowing to inspect net recovery and peak cash needs.
These are user-defined cash scenarios under Korean rules for 2026, checked on 2026-11-12; they do not predict a win, an asset-based recovery rate or the appropriate legal procedure.
Use the result for the next discussion
Collect the court notice, itemized lawyer quote, service address and information about executable assets before consulting an adviser.
If repayment is in installments, distinguish the promised dates from actual deposits and review how each installment could repay the moving-funds bridge loan.
Four procedures and their confirmation requirements
Direct settlement
No court application stamp is added for this route; enter actual settlement-document, consultation and other quoted expenses.
A promise to repay is separate from receipt of cash.
Installment due dates, acceleration and security terms require separate review of the agreement.
Finalized payment order
Include the payment-order stamp, service and representation expenses.
Article 462 of the Civil Procedure Act requires the relevant possibility of service in Korea by a method other than public notice; an unknown or negative service answer keeps this route outside confirmed comparison.
A finalized order does not automatically put the deposit into the tenant’s account.
Objection followed by litigation
Separate the payment-order stamp already paid, the additional stamp on conversion and later legal costs.
Articles 470 and 472 require review of a valid objection and its scope; a partial objection is not automatically treated as conversion of the entire claim.
Enter actual total complaint stamps and quotes for the scope being modeled.
Direct litigation
Enter the total complaint stamp plus dated retainer, success fee, service and enforcement costs.
An awarded sum is different from collected money, so define collection amounts and dates separately even when assuming a favorable judgment.
Prepare amounts, dates and supporting records
- Confirm outstanding deposit principal and choose the evaluation start and end dates.
- Check actual court notices for stamps and advance service deposits.
- Add dated expense rows for retainers, success fees, VAT, tenancy-right registration, enforcement and preparation.
- Add dated receipts, separating installment principal, recovered interest and recovered costs.
- Check the loan amount, draw date, quoted annual rate and fee, then enter available personal cash.
- Mark a route confirmed only after checking its inputs or deliberately adopting them as an explicit scenario.
Each route supports up to 12 expense rows and 12 receipt rows, all on valid calendar dates within the evaluation period.
Amounts are whole Korean won (KRW), and total principal receipts cannot exceed the outstanding deposit.
The evaluation period is limited to 3,650 days; entered collection dates are assumptions, not estimated court processing times.
Unknown is different from zero
Do not confirm an unquoted expense as zero just to complete the form.
Leave its route unconfirmed until the missing information is checked or explicitly assumed.
Avoid adding VAT again to a VAT-inclusive quote or entering the same stamp in both the stamp field and an expense row.
Avoid counting conversion stamps twice
Article 7 of the Act on Stamps Attached for Civil Litigation, etc. and Article 473 of the Civil Procedure Act provide the credit for a payment-order application stamp when the matter proceeds to litigation.
The complaint-stamp field means the total stamp required for the complaint, not an additional correction notice already reduced by prior payment.
Entering an already-netted additional notice as the total would deduct the credit twice, so check what the notice actually states.
Stamp budget formula
Additional conversion stamp = max(0, total complaint stamp − payment-order stamp)
Total for objection then litigation = payment-order stamp + additional conversion stamp
For an illustrative KRW 50,000 payment-order stamp and KRW 500,000 total complaint stamp, the additional amount is KRW 450,000 and total expense is KRW 500,000.
If the prior stamp is KRW 600,000, the additional amount is zero and the expense remains KRW 600,000; the KRW 100,000 difference is not automatically refunded.
If a refund is confirmed, record its amount and receipt date once as recovered costs.
Net recovery and peak cash formulas
Net recovery = principal receipts + interest receipts + cost recovery − stamps − other procedural expenses − borrowing interest − borrowing fees
A costs award is different from actual reimbursement, so only separately entered cost receipts count as cash inflows.
The full retainer, success fee and VAT are not automatically recovered from the other party.
Loan proceeds are not recovered deposit money, and repayment of loan principal is not a legal expense; both stay outside net recovery.
Peak funding excluding loan principal
The calculator finds the largest shortfall in cumulative dated cash flows before loan draws and principal repayments.
Interest and fees arising under the selected borrowing assumptions remain expenses.
Same-day expenses precede receipts, conservatively recognizing cash that may be needed temporarily during that day.
Personal cash after financing
A second ledger includes the loan draw and principal repayments to find peak personal cash required.
The positive difference from available personal cash is the additional funding gap.
A same-day loan draw precedes expenses in this model; use a more conservative date or assumption if the bank will release funds later.
The new home’s moving deposit itself is outside this expense comparison.
Confirm the required moving-funds loan and total household budget separately, and do not read net recovery as an immediately spendable bank balance.
Bridge borrowing and installment receipts
The model has one loan draw on the entered date and repays outstanding loan principal first from subsequent recovered deposit principal.
Principal received before the loan draw is not retrospectively used to repay a loan that did not yet exist.
Interest receipts and recovered costs remain separate and do not trigger this model’s automatic principal repayment.
Loan funds reserved for another purpose
Enter the portion of the draw immediately committed to the new home’s deposit or another purpose, from zero up to the full loan amount.
The reserved amount is a separate cash outflow on the draw date, so only unreserved borrowing remains available for procedural expenses.
It is a budget outflow toward another potentially returnable asset, rather than an economic expense of recovering this deposit: it does not reduce net recovery, increase the procedural peak excluding loan principal, or reduce the debt balance.
No later return of the reserved amount is assumed automatically, so review the complete moving-funds budget separately.
For example, reserve the entire KRW 20,000,000 draw for another purpose and pay KRW 1,000,000 of procedural expenses that day: personal cash required is KRW 1,000,000.
If none of that draw is reserved and all of it can fund those expenses, personal cash required at that point is zero.
These fictional figures describe that point in time only; later interest, fees, receipts and repayments can change the peak for the whole period.
Simple interest by interval
Borrowing interest = Σ(interval loan balance × annual rate ÷ 100 × actual days ÷ 365)
On each principal receipt date, the available amount reduces the loan balance for the next interval; the final interest total is rounded to whole won.
Interest is budgeted as one payment at the evaluation end, and any unpaid loan principal accrues interest through that date.
Compound interest, changing rates, default rates and early-repayment charges are not calculated automatically; enter confirmed additional contractual charges as separate expenses where needed.
If the deposit is only partly repaid during the period, check both the unrecovered deposit and the remaining loan principal.
Positive net recovery does not necessarily mean the loan has been repaid or that future principal obligations have disappeared.
Worked example: KRW 60 million received after 200 days
Assume an outstanding deposit of KRW 100,000,000 and a 365-day evaluation period from 2026-01-01 to 2027-01-01.
On the start date, draw KRW 20,000,000 at 5% per year with no fee and pay KRW 1,000,000 of procedural expenses; collect KRW 60,000,000 of principal on day 200, 2026-07-20.
These are fictional verification figures, not typical fees, market loan terms or a forecast collection period.
Illustrative KRW 100 million deposit: day-200 partial recovery versus no receipts within the period| Item, KRW | Partial recovery on day 200 | No receipts in period |
|---|
| Principal recovered | 60,000,000 | 0 |
| Borrowing interest | 547,945 | 1,000,000 |
| Net recovery | 58,452,055 | −2,000,000 |
| Unrecovered deposit at end | 40,000,000 | 100,000,000 |
| Unpaid loan principal at end | 0 | 20,000,000 |
The recovery scenario deducts rounded interest of KRW 547,945 from KRW 20,000,000 × 5% × 200 ÷ 365.
With no recovery, the household bears procedural expenses and 365 days of interest, and the loan principal remains unpaid.
Both examples assume zero separate interest receipts and zero cost recovery.
Reading the 30-day and 90-day delay sensitivity
The sensitivity shifts every receipt date by 30 or 90 days while keeping the evaluation end date fixed.
Receipts shifted beyond that end date are excluded from period cash inflows, while remaining borrowing accrues interest through the end date.
A lower net recovery can therefore reflect both extra interest and receipts falling outside the reporting period.
A reporting boundary is different from permanent loss
Money shifted outside the period has not been determined to be permanently unrecoverable.
Actual recoverability depends on assets, priorities, enforceability and performance of the repayment agreement.
Extend the evaluation end date and recalculate the base scenario if a longer cash-flow view is needed.
Early-settlement break-even and negotiations
The target is the highest net recovery among the other confirmed procedures; the calculator then finds the smallest single principal receipt on the early-settlement date that meets that target.
It retains the settlement route’s fixed costs and loan terms, but assumes zero separate interest receipts and zero cost recovery, so this is different from the existing installment settlement schedule.
If no amount within outstanding principal can meet the target, the result is outside range; unconfirmed settlement terms or no confirmed alternative keep the calculation on hold.
This is not a recommended settlement amount
The threshold is an arithmetic boundary under entered assumptions and fixed quotes.
If a success fee depends on the recovered amount, or a settlement changes the quote, obtain the revised quote and recalculate.
Time value, personal burden, evidence, legal entitlement and the value of additional security are not automatically assessed.
Protecting tenancy rights before moving and gathering records
Article 3-3 of the Housing Lease Protection Act provides for a tenancy-right registration order after a tenancy ends without repayment of the deposit.
Filing an application is different from completing registration; the effects on opposability and priority rights depend on completed registration and the statutory conditions.
Entering a registration expense does not mark rights protection or deposit recovery as complete.
- The lease, fixed-date, resident-registration and possession records, plus termination notice and delivery evidence.
- Deposit payment and repayment records, the current balance and evidence concerning restoration deductions.
- The landlord’s service address, repayment agreement and each installment’s actual deposit record.
- Court stamp and service notices, and itemized legal quotes stating whether VAT is included.
- Executable assets, competing rights and the actual bridge-loan contract and repayment terms.
Deposit-return guarantees, guarantee claims, auction distributions and a lender’s pledge or assignment conditions require separate review.
Use a late-interest calculation as a claim-review assumption rather than automatically importing it as money already collected.
Frequently asked questions
Is a payment order always the cheapest route?
Service, the scope of any objection and later enforcement expenses all matter.
An objection can add costs, so compare actual quotes and dates; the tool does not recommend an optimal procedure.
Does winning recover the full lawyer’s bill?
The cost-allocation rule in Article 98 and the recognized lawyer-fee scope in Article 109 do not automatically refund all fees paid.
Enter only separately confirmed or explicitly assumed cost receipts.
What if prior payment-order stamps exceed the complaint total?
The additional stamp is zero and the prior payment remains an expense.
Record a confirmed refund once as recovered costs on its receipt date.
Can I model installments and an unpaid remainder?
Use multiple receipt rows while keeping principal receipts within the outstanding deposit.
The result separately shows the unrecovered deposit and unpaid loan principal at the end.
Are loan proceeds part of net recovery?
Draws and principal repayments affect the financed cash ledger rather than net recovery.
Borrowing interest and fees are expenses and reduce net recovery.
Does a lower delayed recovery mean a permanent loss?
A receipt beyond the fixed end date is outside the evaluation period.
That is not a permanent-loss finding; extend the end date if a longer comparison is needed.
Is the break-even amount my legal entitlement?
It is the arithmetic amount matching net recovery under confirmed assumptions.
It determines neither entitlement nor a fair settlement, and changed success-fee or other quotes require recalculation.
Can I move immediately after applying for registration?
Distinguish application from completed registration and review opposability, priority, loan and guarantee conditions individually.
The calculator does not decide whether moving is legally safe.
Official sources and rule dates
Current Korean provisions and effective dates were checked through the National Law Information OPEN API on 2026-11-12 for this 2026 calculator.
The effective versions are the Civil Procedure Act, 2026-10-02; the Act on Stamps Attached for Civil Litigation, etc., 2025-03-01; the Housing Lease Protection Act, 2026-01-02; and the Civil Execution Act, 2026-02-01.
Recheck the rules on the actual payment date, electronic-filing and correction or refund notices, service status and quoted fee agreement.
Turn the quote and receipt schedule into a discussion checklist
Find the unconfirmed inputs first and prepare questions for the court, lawyer and lender.
Review cash required before collection alongside the unrecovered deposit and remaining loan principal to make the recovery budget concrete.
Review a separate interest-claim assumption with the Jeonse deposit late-interest calculator.