A defensible fee schedule starts with allocation rules
A commercial-building management-fee invoice usually combines costs that behave differently, including general management, electricity, cleaning, repairs, outsourced management, and whole-building insurance.
One item may follow exclusive floor area, another may follow a meter reading, and a third may be divided equally per unit.
Vacancy treatment and the owner-versus-tenant split add two more decisions, so dividing only the grand total can hide material errors.
This calculator allocates a confirmed monthly budget or invoice across up to 20 units and up to 14 fee items.
It keeps supply amount and VAT separate, identifies the baseline share attributable to vacant units, and reconciles every won to the building total.
It is a Korea-specific negotiation and checking tool, not a legal ruling, market benchmark, or automatic recommendation of the correct contract term.
Unit reconciliation
Match supply, VAT, owner, and tenant subtotals to the building total
Vacancy visibility
Separate the baseline vacant share from owner cost and occupied-unit redistribution
Method comparison
Compare the selected mix with all-area, all-equal, and available all-metered scenarios
The 2026 Korean management-fee disclosure boundary
A tenant request for an itemized statement
Article 19-2 of the Korean Commercial Building Lease Protection Act addresses a lease in which the parties agreed that the tenant pays a management fee to the landlord.
The tenant may request the management-fee breakdown and the landlord must provide it under the provision.
The supplementary provision applies Article 19-2 to leases entered into or renewed on or after May 12, 2026, so the contract and renewal dates matter.
Article 19 also supports checking repair-cost allocation and management-fee items in the standard lease form, but it does not validate a particular clause automatically.
Fourteen categories under the Enforcement Decree
Article 8 of the Enforcement Decree, effective July 1, 2026, identifies general management, cleaning, security, disinfection, elevator maintenance, heating or cooling and hot water, repair and maintenance, and outsourced management fees.
It also identifies electricity, water, gas, septic-waste handling, waste handling, and whole-building insurance, for a total of 14 categories.
When the monthly management fee payable by the tenant to the landlord is below KRW 100,000, item amounts may be omitted, but the included item names still need to be shown under the decree.
The calculator presets help reconcile those categories; they do not decide whether an invoice is legally sufficient or whether an amount is reasonable.
Disclosure categories are not a statutory unit-allocation formula
The statute and decree describe the breakdown to provide, but they do not prescribe one formula for allocating every item across units.
A building held by one owner, a condominium-type aggregate building with several owners, and a property governed by separate management rules can have different legal structures.
Use the area, meter, equal-share, and vacancy options only to reproduce terms confirmed in the lease, management rules, owners association resolution, or management contract.
Documents and data to prepare
Unit and occupancy data
- Stable unit names from the lease or building record
- Exclusive area measured on the same basis for every unit
- Actual occupied or vacant status for the billing period
- Meter readings expressed on one consistent basis
- A separate prorated input for mid-period move-in or move-out
Fee and contract data
- Supply amounts from the management-fee statement
- Tax invoices, receipts, and confirmed VAT treatment
- Lease clauses on repairs and operating expenses
- Management rules, resolutions, and vacancy provisions
- Management contract and source meter records
The calculator provides one common meter column rather than a separate reading for every expense.
If electricity and water have different unit ratios, run them separately or enter converted values that preserve the correct ratio for the current item.
Do not mix exclusive area and gross area in the same run because inconsistent denominators make the comparison misleading.
Allocation formulas and exact won reconciliation
Area, metered usage, and equal per unit
Exclusive-area allocation uses each unit area divided by the eligible units total area.
Metered allocation uses each eligible unit reading divided by the eligible total and returns an input error when the denominator is zero.
Equal allocation assigns a weight of one to every eligible unit regardless of its area or measured use.
unit share = item amount × unit weight ÷ eligible weight total
item VAT = rounded supply amount × confirmed rate ÷ 100
fee per m² = building gross amount ÷ total exclusive area
Supply and VAT are allocated separately
The calculation uses the largest-remainder method for integer-won allocations, with input order as the deterministic tie-breaker.
Supply and VAT are divided separately before being added, so both subtotals remain reconcilable to the source statement.
For example, KRW 101 of supply plus KRW 10 of VAT split equally between two units becomes KRW 56 for the first unit and KRW 55 for the second, preserving the KRW 111 total exactly.
A 10% VAT rate does not determine taxability
Article 30 of the Korean Value-Added Tax Act provides the general 10% rate, but an expense label alone does not establish whether that charge is taxable.
Reimbursement structure, the underlying lease service, tax-invoice treatment, and input-tax credit can change the analysis.
Apply VAT only to items supported by the actual evidence and enter the rate shown by the relevant tax treatment.
Two vacancy scenarios
Vacant unit charged to owner
Every unit remains in the allocation denominator, and the amount assigned to a vacant unit is charged entirely to its owner.
Amounts assigned to occupied units are then divided using the entered owner percentage and the remaining tenant percentage.
Select this only when it matches the governing documents for the item and period.
Redistribute across occupied units
Vacant units leave the selected allocation denominator and the full item is divided among occupied units.
The calculator also runs an all-unit baseline to show how much would otherwise have been attributed to vacancies.
This option models a confirmed clause; it does not conclude that shifting vacancy cost to tenants is legally permitted.
Redistribution cannot run when every unit is vacant because no occupied denominator exists.
Change the item to owner vacancy treatment or correct the occupancy period before proceeding.
A warning also appears when the baseline vacant share reaches at least 20% of the building total, making the vacancy sensitivity easier to discuss.
Step-by-step workflow
- Use one billing period and one amount basis
Convert every item to the same monthly or settlement period and enter supply before VAT.
- Add units and occupancy
Enter up to 20 labels, exclusive areas, occupancy states, and comparable meter readings.
- Map the statement to fee categories
Select one of the 14 statutory categories, preserve the invoice label, and enter its supply amount.
- Reproduce each documented rule
Choose area, meter, or equal allocation and then choose owner vacancy or occupied-unit redistribution.
- Enter the occupied-unit owner share
Keep repairs, consumption charges, and other items separate when their owner-versus-tenant percentages differ.
- Reconcile both result tables
Check unit totals, party totals, supply, VAT, vacancy baseline, and method differences before using the schedule in negotiations.
Worked example
The default example uses occupied Unit 101 at 50 m², occupied Unit 102 at 30 m², and vacant Unit 201 at 20 m².
It applies 10% VAT to KRW 1,000,000 of general management, KRW 520,000 of electricity, KRW 300,000 of cleaning, and KRW 400,000 of repair and maintenance.
General management and repairs use area, electricity uses meter readings, and cleaning uses equal shares with the vacant cleaning share redistributed to occupied units.
Supply is KRW 2,220,000, VAT is KRW 222,000, and gross monthly fees are KRW 2,442,000.
Worked example management fee, owner share, and tenant share by unit| Unit | Status | Gross allocation | Owner | Tenant |
|---|
| Unit 101 | Occupied | KRW 1,287,000 | KRW 346,500 | KRW 940,500 |
| Unit 102 | Occupied | KRW 825,000 | KRW 214,500 | KRW 610,500 |
| Unit 201 | Vacant | KRW 330,000 | KRW 330,000 | KRW 0 |
| Total | 80% occupied by area | KRW 2,442,000 | KRW 891,000 | KRW 1,551,000 |
Total exclusive area is 100 m², so the building fee is KRW 24,420 per m².
The all-unit vacancy baseline is KRW 440,000, of which KRW 110,000 in cleaning cost moves to occupied units, leaving KRW 330,000 actually assigned to the vacant unit.
These figures are deterministic demonstration inputs and do not represent a market price or an appropriate fee level.
Aggregate-building rules and lease obligations are different layers
Articles 12 and 17 of the Act on Ownership and Management of Aggregate Buildings use the exclusive-area share as an important default for common-part ownership and common-part management costs when the rules do not provide otherwise.
Articles 28 and 42 address management rules and certain use-related obligations that can extend to occupants.
Those provisions do not automatically become the tenant invoice formula for every single-owner building, private lease, exclusive-area expense, or vacancy arrangement.
Articles 623 and 626 of the Korean Civil Act concern the landlord duty to maintain the condition necessary for use and profit and the treatment of necessary or useful expenses paid by a tenant.
A label such as repair and maintenance is not enough to decide the final payer without reviewing the expense, cause, evidence, and lease terms.
For a disputed or material amount, use the result as a reconciliation worksheet and obtain case-specific advice on the underlying documents.
Frequently asked questions
Does the owner always pay management fees for a vacant unit?
No universal answer follows from vacancy alone. Common-part ownership, the lease, management rules, the expense type, and the relevant period all need review.
Is exclusive-area allocation the only legally permitted method?
No. The aggregate-building area-share principle is an important default in its own context, but it does not prescribe one tenant-billing method for every usage charge or lease.
Can the landlord omit every detail below KRW 100,000 per month?
The decree permits omission of item amounts in the below-KRW-100,000 case, but the included fee item names must still be shown. Check the statutory start date and whether the relationship falls within the provision.
Can electricity and water use the same meter column?
Only when both items have the same proportional usage by unit. Otherwise, run separate calculations with the correct readings for each item.
How should a mid-month move-in be handled?
The calculator does not perform daily proration. Apply the documented proration rule to the amount or allocation input first, then run the relevant period separately.
Can the result replace source evidence in a dispute?
No. Keep the lease, management rules, resolution, tax invoice, receipt, source ledger, and meter record with the exported or copied schedule.
Practical checks before using the schedule
- Separate fixed building costs from measured consumption when their allocation rules differ
- Do not confuse the all-unit vacancy baseline with the amount actually billed to a vacant unit
- Remember that the owner percentage applies to occupied-unit allocations while vacant-unit allocations remain owner cost
- Document any meter replacement, missing reading, shared meter, or manual adjustment
- Keep rent, deposit interest, arrears, and late charges outside the management-fee amount
- Run separate periods when a lease clause or management rule changes
Official sources and the next action
The legal boundary was checked against current Korean statutes on August 17, 2026.
The source identifiers are Commercial Building Lease Protection Act ID 009276 and MST 279651, its Enforcement Decree ID 009361 and MST 287139, Aggregate Buildings Act ID 001262 and MST 249285, Civil Act ID 001706 and MST 284415, and Value-Added Tax Act ID 001571 and MST 276117.
After calculating, reconcile both result tables to the source ledger and inspect the contract language first for items whose amount changes materially across allocation methods.
Turn the documented rule into a reconciled schedule
Enter the actual units, fee items, vacancy choices, and party percentages before the next invoice or lease discussion.