Wandering in circles — when you don't know what to do next.
10. Wandering
— When you don't know what to do next
Writer: Jung Seung-ho, Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse
Editor: Somora, ONDA Manager
Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse Dongdaemun (Main Branch) Address: 329-18 Changsin-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul Room types: Small twin, small double, standard twin Shared facilities: Common living room & kitchen, rooftop garden Nearby attractions: Naksan Park, Heunginjimun Gate, DDP, Changsin-dong stationery & toy market, Dongmyo flea market
Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse DDP (Branch) Address: 74 Jangchung-dong 2-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul Room types: Double, family rooms (3/4/6 person) Shared facilities: Common living room & kitchen, rooftop garden Nearby attractions: Jangchung Gymnasium, Namsan, Gwanghuimun Gate, Cheonggyecheon Stream
Seoul Dalbit Guesthouse SNS Website: http://seouldalbit.com Instagram: @seoul_dalbit
We'd finally found our first space and headed to the real estate office to sign the lease. A contract involving money that office workers can barely scrape together. More importantly, we were about to invest even bigger sums to renovate the entire building and commit to at least five years in business. I did my homework — researched various angles, asked around for advice — hoping to secure favorable terms.
Looking back, though, I was out of my depth. The contract ended up tilted against us in ways I didn't spot at the time. A commercial lease is the foundation of your business — it's the document you'll turn to if disputes or misunderstandings arise, and even if nothing goes wrong, it's the bedrock of your operation. For anyone dreaming of opening their own place via a commercial lease, here are some practical tips.
1) Leave medicine to doctors, law to lawyers, construction to architects.
Read the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act thoroughly and memorize the key clauses. The full text is available at the National Law Information Center (http://www.law.go.kr/법령/상가건물임대차보호법). Pay special attention to deposit recovery, lease rights, renewal rights, and key money recovery.
But for gray areas or real-world scenarios not explicitly covered by statute, you need a lawyer. Don't rely on internet forums — information there can be inaccurate or inapplicable to your case. Get professional legal advice.
Legal consultation isn't as intimidating as you might think. These days, web-based services offer phone consultations for under ₩50,000 per session. Even better, some local governments provide free legal counseling — and in my experience, it's surprisingly thorough. They'll even dig up precedents. You can consult regardless of your district, so track down the service. (Example: Jongno-gu Office free legal consultation page: http://www.jongno.go.kr/Main.do?menuNo=1800)
If you're in food service, this may not apply. But if you need to change the building's designated use or do major repairs, consult an architect. Architects usually work closely with district officials, so find one based in the area where your building is located.
2) Mindset: "It'd be nice if this works out. If not, next."
The building might seem perfect for your vision. The agent might tell you there's a line of other tenants waiting. The landlord might pressure you to sign now. Don't rush. As I said before, there are plenty of buildings out there. You could lose the deal if you take too long, but when evaluating a property, give yourself at least 2–3 weeks to scrutinize every detail.
Pull the property registry from the Korea Internet Deunggi Service. Have lunch at nearby restaurants and casually ask about the landlord's reputation. If there are special circumstances — like needed repairs or zoning changes — investigate thoroughly in advance. This is a contract involving tens of millions of won and committing you for years. Sign hastily and things can spiral into a mess that exhausts everyone involved.
3) Dissect every single term in the contract.
A commercial lease consists of the standard form clauses plus special provisions. Examine every word. If possible, get a draft from the agent and review it for a few days.
Agents typically side with landlords — they want to close the deal fast to collect their fee. They'll sweet-talk you into signing on the spot. But remember: the one with the cash in hand right now is you.
Key points to watch in a commercial lease:
▪ Is the leased property clearly specified? Verify the address, area, and floor range. Older buildings sometimes have unauthorized rooftop structures that can cause problems during zoning changes.
▪ Pull the property registry yourself from the Internet Deunggi Service. Some people present outdated copies. If there's a mortgage on the property, check that the amount isn't excessive. If the building has multiple owners, disputes can get messy.
▪ Have you met the landlord in person? If possible, verify their ID (even if they cover the resident registration number). Some scammers pose as landlords using forged power-of-attorney documents or official seals when they're actually tenants themselves.
▪ Specify the lease purpose in the special provisions. If something goes wrong with the building during the lease term, proving that you can't use it for its intended purpose puts you in a stronger position. (Of course, issues arising from your own use during the term are a different story.)
▪ If you're doing interior construction, you might negotiate a rent-free period and include it in the special provisions. If you can start work immediately, specify the dates. But if zoning changes are involved or if the landlord's repairs overlap with your timeline, schedules can get tangled. Plan meticulously and consult in advance so you can specify terms that work in your favor.
▪ Utility bill settlements with the previous tenant are usually handled by the agent, but it's good to specify a settlement date (e.g., "final deposit payment date").
▪ Consider redevelopment plans in the area. If redevelopment moves forward, you might not be able to complete your lease term.
▪ Some landlords request additional documents as a precondition for signing. For example, a pre-litigation settlement agreement — a document where both parties agree in advance on potentially contentious issues, then have it certified by the court to give it legal force. Even in such cases, get a draft, consult a lawyer, scrutinize it thoroughly, and only then sign.
Of course, the points above came from hard-won experience. Our first contract was neither thorough nor bold. We thought we were diligent — spent an hour or two at the real estate office poring over the document — but looking back, we missed a lot. The real mistake was overconfidently promising to start paying rent X months later, assuming we could breeze through zoning changes and renovations.
Anyway, the moment we stamped the contract, we asked an architect to rezone the building from residential/neighborhood facility to tourist accommodation — hostel. To produce the drawings required for the zoning change, we started hunting for a designer. We combed through every network: my partner's acquaintances, acquaintances of acquaintances, high school classmates, college friends' connections.
These days, services have proliferated and finding designers/contractors is a bit easier. But back then, Korea's interior design market was deeply information-asymmetric. Finding a decent contractor was crucial yet grueling.
Reference images we shared during the design phase. We aimed for warm, cozy, approachable vibes.
After much trial and error, we found a designer and handed over our concept and references. At the time, I gathered references from Google image searches, accommodations we'd personally stayed at and liked, plus places around Seoul that looked promising (yes, we actually booked stays there!). The result was pretty solid.
We provided dozens of reference images for each section — entrance, common areas, guest rooms — then went through several rounds of meetings. The first set of floor plans and 3D renderings came back. The colors and concept felt right.
Great! Now we have the design — time to build! ^0^
The first 3D rendering we received. The excitement I felt seeing it for the first time is still vivid, three years later.
But that was the start of the nightmare. We'd never done a project this big, so we had no contractors in our network. And separating design from construction was a bad move. If you're reading this: find someone who can do both.
We mobilized every contact to find an interior construction firm. But for studios with respectable portfolios, our project was small potatoes. They were polite, but we got the runaround. The pain of being a newbie. The draft plans were done ages ago, but the search for a contractor dragged on. Meanwhile, the first rent payment deadline in our lease crept closer. Then an unexpected problem surfaced.
The actual outcome. A few revisions along the way, but ultimately it turned out well.
The room layout we'd Tetris-ed together for maximum profitability? Rejected during the zoning process. Wall thickness between rooms, corridor width — issues everywhere. The architect who'd promised breezy approval for our draft turned out to be an amateur. We fired him immediately and went to an architect seasoned in hospitality projects. We started factoring in room layout, fire safety, building codes, all sorts of legal requirements…
Time kept slipping away. The first rent payment loomed.
[Series Contents]
Jan 2019 Prologue Feb 2019 Eyes Open Mar 2019 Daydreaming Apr 2019 Observation May 2019 Conceiving Jun 2019 Encounter Jul 2019 Excitement Aug 2019 Catching My Breath Sep 2019 Calculation Oct 2019 Wandering Nov 2019 Breaking Ground Dec 2019 Coming Together Jan 2020 Grand Opening Feb 2020 Epilogue — Quitting My Job: A Summary