According to the Act on the Ownership and Management of Multi-unit Buildings (hereinafter referred to as "this Act"), to be eligible for sectional ownership, a unit must possess structural and operational independence. "Structural independence" here means that the relevant building section (the exclusive section) must be externally distinguishable from other building sections. Therefore, if the boundary wall separating the exclusive sections is removed, the structural independence will be lost, making it difficult to consider each exclusive section as an independent building.
Therefore, even if it is registered as an exclusive part in the collective building register and the registration is completed, if the boundary wall with the neighbor is completely removed, the structural independence is lost and in principle, the separate ownership relationship should be considered to be extinguished.
In this regard, our Supreme Court has ruled that if several structurally distinct parts of a single building were independent buildings and the object of the divided ownership, but the partitions between the divided buildings were removed or otherwise integrated, and each divided building lost its independence as a building and became one building with the section after integration as its exclusive part, the registration of the existing divided building is only recognized as a registration of a common share corresponding to the proportion of the new building created by the merger (Supreme Court Decision 2008Ma1385, March 22, 2010).
However, the Supreme Court has ruled that even if the boundary wall installed between adjacent sectional buildings is removed for a certain reason, causing each sectional building to lose its structural and usable independence as a sectional building, if the location and area of each sectional building can be specified, and if, according to social conventions, it is temporary based on the premise of restoration as a sectional building and restoration is easy, it cannot be easily determined that each sectional building has lost its substance as a sectional building (Supreme Court Decision 98Ma1438, June 2, 1999).
In order to demolish only the boundary wall without annexing the exclusive portion in a specific case, the exceptional requirements set forth in this Supreme Court decision must be met.
Attorney Lee Yong-hwa of Ubiz Law Firm has extensive experience and deep expertise in the real estate field. Through his long practical experience, he has handled a variety of real estate-related issues and provides reasonable and practical solutions to customers.
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