Korean Job Discussion Forums

[davemon]

I got a car a year ago. Paid the insurance quarterly. I paid for 2 quarters but got lazy and didn't pay for 2 quarters, because I didn't get that warning text saying it was due, yeah I know I should have been more diligent. Just pre-paid today after getting a letter saying I violated the so and so insurance law. They want me to go in and talk to them, my Korean friend said it will take an hour. I also have gotten a few speeding tickets (all paid). I'm curious what penalty I'm looking at? Will this affect future visa transfers?

Anyone been in this stupid situation? I guess I needed a good slap in the face to keep me in line. Demolishing the POS car this weekend. Just not worth it.

Thanks.

[newb]

[thrylos]

You'll need to pay a fine, I think it is accrued daily, but hopefully I'm wrong. You'll also need to back-pay 2 quarters' (??) worth of insurance, whether you trash the car or not, or you had any accident or not, it's irrelevant. That's my understanding of the issue.

IF you pay everything off, it shouldn't affect any future visa transfers. Make sure you keep any and all receipts of fines and back-insurance payments to be on the safe side.

You might even be able to take care of everything at the car-trashing place (Pye-cha)-- I know you can pay off outstanding tickets/car taxes, may be different with insurance issues.

Good luck.

[Dog Soldier]

My friend was caught riding a 50cc scooter with no licence and no insurance. His visa wasn't affected but he had to pay 400k as a fine.

[coralreefer_1]

I dont know about the penalty for getting caught without insurance, but I can tell you now that if you try to trash the car, the registration will come back with a fine.

When your insurance lapses, you are supposed to rip (yes, they actually expect you to somehow get the plate off) and turn it in to the registration office. For every day your insurance is expired and you havent turned in the plate, they charge a penalty.

I went through something very similar 2 years ago where I had a car that I wasn't driving because of a transmission problem and let the insurance expire..parked it...used it as storage over the winter until summer came and I bought a new car. When I went to junk the car and they read the registration number, I had a 860,000 won fine. They city was charging me 6,000won for each day that the car was uninsured or otherwise I hadn't turned in the plate.

Luckily, its something you can be paid off in installments,( assuming you turn in the registration) and the interest is assessed per payment that you make (I think it was 7% of each payment I made) but otherwise it wasn't interest on the balance of the fine.

[coralreefer_1]

Probably not a good thing so say, but after going back and reading a blog post I made about the issue, I seem to have had a situation where the title/registration of the car I mentioned in the post above was able to be transferred, and it wasnt until I registered insurance on the new car that I got a letter concerning the bill some days later.

In your case, if you are junking the car, and otherwise dont plan on getting another one (with legal insurance) I dont think you would have much of a problem.

Note I am not endorsing skipping out on a fine...just saying that in my case, nothing was done UNTIL I tried to get insurance for something else. In that case, if I am not mistaken, you will still continue to get charged per day until you either get new insurance, or turn in the plate.

It may in fact work out that if you do dispose of the car at the junkyard, when the guy does the necessary paperwork with the city, he may either reject your car, or have to pay it himself (since the car being junked is a bit of a different situation that simply transferring the title which is what i did to the guy i bought the new car from).

Either way, until that plate/registration is turned in, or otherwise you get new insurance...the city will continue to add money daily to your name...and MAY eventually come knocking on your door/employers door looking for the car at some point in the future.

[coralreefer_1]

Bumping this to find to know out of curiosity what happened with disposing of the car since it was mentioned the OP would do so this weekend, and whether the insurance issue came into play with that.

[davemon]

So I just renewed my insurance, then sold the car to a friend for nothing, just to get rid of the headache. It's not in my name anymore but there was a clear lapse of 6 months without insurance. The registration transfer was smooth, went without a hitch. No questions, no hassles. So I think this means there are no outstanding fines levied.

Probably beside the point, I did find my insurance card for 3 of those months, they just didn't bill me for some reason and maybe I was supposed to come back, I figured they would square it away or warn me or something.

I'm not sure what the police want with me, but I'm supposed to go in to talk to them still. Trying to find a time when a Korean friend can go with me to assist. I'm not walking in there with my limited vocab to try to explain myself.

If its only a fine, I'll be content as I ignored the insurance just waiting for someone to say something.

Will update when resolved.