Tacit Renewal: Automatic Lease Extension in Korean Housing Rentals

When you subscribe to a music or video service and forget to cancel, your plan renews for another month on its own.

The same thing happens with a jeonse (Korea's lump-sum deposit lease) or a monthly rent (wolse) lease. The lease end date is right around the corner, and neither the landlord nor the tenant says a single word to the other, such as "I want to raise the deposit" or "I'm moving out when the lease ends."

When both sides quietly let the deadline pass, the law concludes that both of them want to keep the lease going on the same terms. The legal term for this is "tacit" renewal, meaning agreement that is understood without being spoken.

You don't need to write a new contract or stamp a new seal. With the deposit and rent in the original contract unchanged, your right to live there is safely extended for another two years.

If you don't want the automatic extension, you must clearly state your objection within the deadline the law sets. Staying silent is itself treated as agreeing.

For housing, the landlord must tell the tenant about any change in terms, or a request to move out, between six months and two months before the lease ends. A tenant who wants to move elsewhere must tell the landlord at least two months before the lease ends.

If you're late by even a single day and miss that two-month deadline, the lease is automatically extended on the day the lease term ends. Complaining later that "I meant to say something but I was too busy and forgot" is not recognized by the law at all. That said, tacit renewal does not apply to a tenant who is two or more rent payments behind or who has seriously breached the lease.

So don't rely on words alone. It's very important to leave a record that clearly proves the date you gave notice, such as a recorded call, a text message, a chat app message, or certified mail from the post office.

Once a lease is tacitly renewed, the law protects the tenant, the weaker party, even more strongly. For the next two years after the automatic extension, the landlord can't just kick the tenant out, and can't raise the deposit or rent partway through.

The tenant, on the other hand, can stay the full two years, or, if circumstances force a move, can notify the landlord at any time that they are ending the lease. That doesn't mean the tenant can leave the very day they say they're going.

The termination takes effect only three months after the tenant's notice reaches the landlord. This gives the landlord time to find a new tenant and prepare the deposit to be returned.

So until three months have passed since the notice arrived, the lease is still in force, and the tenant must keep paying monthly rent and maintenance fees. Only after the three months does the landlord have a legal duty to return the deposit.

One more thing: all the periods described so far apply to housing leases. For a commercial (shop) lease, a tacit renewal lasts one year, not two (where the converted deposit is at or below the regional threshold), and the landlord's deadline for refusing renewal also differs: from six months to one month before the lease ends.