Descendants of pro-Japanese collaborators to be banned from buying back confiscated properties
Published: 18 Aug. 2025, 13:58
Updated: 18 Aug. 2025, 20:48
Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI
![Taegeuki, Korean national flags, are hung on an apartment complex in Seoul on Aug. 15, Korea's Liberation Day. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/08/18/125a0896-ab0b-4657-b6b7-ae4c5e9da374.jpg)
Taegeuki, Korean national flags, are hung on an apartment complex in Seoul on Aug. 15, Korea's Liberation Day. [YONHAP]
The government will bar the descendants of pro-Japanese collaborators from buying back properties confiscated by the state.
The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs announced on Monday that it has established a new review body to prevent assets seized from pro-Japanese collaborators of the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945) from being resold to their descendants.
The ministry pledged to act after criticism during a parliamentary audit last year that 12 of 341 properties confiscated from collaborators had later been sold back to their heirs.
In May, the ministry created a subcommittee on the sale of pro-Japanese properties under the Committee for the Operation of the Fund for Patriots and Independence Activists. The subcommittee will review proposed sales through private contracts and determine whether they are appropriate, inappropriate or should be postponed. The fund operation committee will make the final decision.
Following the audit, the ministry conducted a probe into some of the confiscated assets. Cases suspected of having been resold to descendants were categorized into three types: where a collaborator’s grave or building remains on the parcel, where shared ownership was registered and where adjacent land was purchased by a family member.
Based on those findings, the ministry will conduct a comprehensive review of 842 confiscated plots that remain unsold and focus its oversight on 118 parcels deemed at high risk of being resold to descendants.
The ministry also plans to have the Korea Asset Management Corporation, the state-run agency overseeing public assets, conduct an in-depth inspection of remaining properties within the year.
It further pledged to strengthen fiscal management by imposing compensation fees on unauthorized occupants and enforcing proper lease contracts. Properties with high potential for sale will be put up for public auction to secure funds for the Patriots and Independence Activists Project Fund, which supports former independence fighters and their families.
"We will ensure flawless management and sale of confiscated pro-Japanese properties so that independence patriots and their families who dedicated themselves to the nation’s liberation will not be neglected in honor or support," said Veterans Minister Kwon Oh-eul.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY HYEON YE-SEUL [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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