To Steal 17.8 Billion Won, He Ran for Office Instead of Robbing a Bank

Robbing a bank requires a gun.

The former gang boss in JTBC's drama Apartment runs for office instead. The money he is after is 17.8 billion won, and it is not sitting in a bank — it is sitting inside a residential complex. Korean viewers laugh at the premise before hearing anything else.

They laugh not because it is absurd but because of the opposite — that money really is there.

At a glance

Only the sixth row would look unfamiliar on a drama fact sheet from any other country. Everything else is standard; the long-term repair reserve is the one item with no ready translation.

That is also why the international title became The Apartment Job. Attach the heist-movie sense of job and the meaning carries, but what is being robbed disappears.

The money he is after has a name written into statute

The long-term repair reserve is not invented for television. It appears in Article 30 of Korea's Multi-Family Housing Management Act, which requires the management body to collect and accumulate — from the owners of the units — the funds needed to replace and repair major facilities under a long-term repair plan.

It is not the same as the monthly maintenance fee. Maintenance fees split what was already spent this month; the repair reserve stockpiles money for work that has not happened yet.

That last row is the whole premise. Replacing a lift twenty years from now means collecting twenty years of it in advance, so the complex's account always holds money nobody has spent.

But the strange part is not the 17.8 billion — it is how the money gets spent

The figure is merely large. What is distinctly Korean sits in the procedure for touching it.

Under Article 30(4) of the same act, the reserve may only be used after the management body drafts a spending plan and the residents' representative council votes it through. How that council is formed is set out in Article 14: at least four members, filled by building representatives elected in each constituency by universal, equal, direct and secret ballot.

Those are the same four principles Korea applies to electing members of the National Assembly. And the core qualification to stand is not a licence or a career record — it is residing in that constituency.

There is no need to rob a bank.

Move in, then win the election.

The law does not leave this unguarded. Complexes of 300 units or more fall under mandatory management and must disclose meeting minutes to residents, Article 27 requires publication of maintenance fee breakdowns, and Article 29 mandates a long-term repair plan. When local governments audit a complex, misuse of the repair reserve is the first thing they look for.

Read the other way round, a long list of safeguards records a long list of incidents. That is precisely why the premise does not sound far-fetched to a Korean audience.

17.8 billion is not a number an average complex produces

So is the figure realistic? Run it against the national average rate and the answer appears.

According to the Ministry of Land's apartment management information system, the national average reserve rate stood at about 143 won per ㎡ per month (July 2017). For the 84㎡ unit that dominates Korean housing, that is roughly 12,000 won a month, or 144,000 won a year.

No row reads comfortably. Rates are set complex by complex in the management rules, so some collect several times the average, and complexes heading for reconstruction deliberately raise them to bank the construction cost early. The drama picked a number from that end of the range.

The exaggeration stops at the amount, though. The structure is untouched — the money accumulates automatically every month, spending it is decided by the votes of elected representatives, and what it takes to win those votes is simply living there.

53.9% of households live in apartments, and nine of every ten new homes is one

How many people this structure catches is also measurable. In the 2024 Population and Housing Census (as of 1 November), 53.9% of households lived in apartments, out of a national stock of 19.87 million homes.

Just over half is hard to call a vast majority. The direction is unambiguous, though — of the 346,000 homes completed between January and October that year, 308,000 were apartments, or 89%.

Nine in ten new homes going up today are apartments, so the share keeps climbing. Another way of saying it: the number of households receiving an apartment maintenance bill grows every year.

The ratings curve looks related. The show opened at 4.6%, dipped to 4.1% by episode five, then hit a series-high 6.1% at episode ten — number one in its time slot across all channels, terrestrial broadcasters included. What 6% actually means in Korean television deserves its own look, but a line that rises week after week means word travelled.

Worth adding that a 12-episode run is no longer short by Korean standards. The claim that 16 episodes is the norm has already been overtaken by the statistics.

A tenant who paid the repair reserve gets it back on moving out

If you rent a home in Korea, this article now has an immediate use.

The party legally liable for the long-term repair reserve is the owner. In practice, though, it is usually printed on the monthly maintenance bill and charged to whoever lives there. Under Article 31(8) of the Enforcement Decree, a tenant who paid it can settle up with the owner when moving out.

At roughly 12,000 won a month on a two-year lease, that is about 290,000 won. Money left behind by anyone who does not know to ask.

Three things to do. Find the long-term repair reserve line on the maintenance bill and note the monthly amount; ask the management office for a written record of what was paid during the lease; then claim it alongside the deposit at move-out settlement. The separate maintenance deposit works differently — it transfers to the next buyer — and is not part of this.

What this means where you are

Everywhere people share a building, repair costs for common areas have to be banked in advance. What differs is when the money is collected.

The collection methods are opposites and the destination is identical. In both countries the money ends up in the hands of a body the residents elected. If disputes over Vietnamese developers refusing to hand the maintenance fund to a newly formed management board sound familiar, you already understand what this drama is poking at.

For anyone house-hunting in Korea, a short checklist. Maintenance fees are separate from rent in both monthly and jeonse contracts, and what they include — water, heating, internet — varies by complex. Parking limits, visitor parking, pets and recycling days are set by each complex's own rules, and the body that writes those rules is the very council in this drama.

The question that stays open

The drama ends after twelve episodes. The maintenance bill arrives again next month.

Park Hae-gang moved in knowing 17.8bn won was sitting there. Did the people already living in that complex know? And of those who did, how many also know that the value is attached to the ground rather than the building?

Read next

• The year the house was torn down, the land was worth 44% more — where the value behind an apartment share actually sits
• A 4.6% rating took first place? — how to read the 6.1% in this article
• KBS, tvN, ENA and the streamers — where JTBC sits on the map

Sources

• Ten Asia — Ji Sung smiles through JTBC's finances: Apartment tops its time slot
• Star News — Apartment hits a series-high 6.1%
• Easy Law Korea — Long-term repair plans and repair reserves
• Easy Law Korea — Settling maintenance deposits and long-term repair reserves when you move
• Korea.kr — 2024 Population and Housing Census (register-based)
• Insight — Ji Sung plays an ex-gangster running for apartment council chair in JTBC's Apartment