Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tremazing87]

Hello everyone.

So I'm leaving Korea in about a month and I was planning to sell my car until I got some bills from the city saying I owe a lot of money (700k+) in penalties for letting my insurance lapse, which I did because I thought I was leaving six months ago and didn't want to pay for a whole other year.

Now I only paid around 800k for the car initially when I got it a year and a half ago. I'm not really attached to the car or the money that it's worth (which is about $0 now that I owe so much) but at this point I don't want to deal with all of it so I'm not sure what the best or possible options are.

1) Is it possible to sell it and use the money to pay off the debt?

2) Is it possible to relinquish the car to the city (e.g. repo) to cover the debt?

Either way I'm basically giving away the car, but i'm fine with that if it's possible and relatively painless. Has anyone ever been in this situation? If so, what options are there?

[Lucas]

You could have paid for the whole year (insurance) and got a rebate on the money owed. Once you scrapped it/sold it. Anyway, too late now.....

I'm 99% sure you cannot sell the car, until all debt has been paid - unless you sell it in cash to a new waygookin!

You cannot just give the car to the govt either - they want their pound of flesh first...

Your only option - for 'smooth' sailing is to pay off the debt first and then sell/scrap the car.

Your sooooo stupid btw for driving a car without insurance!

[I-am-me]

I hear ya! I got a big bill for not paying the car tax for several years. I moved from Suwon and never got anything nor had any idea how to forward mail. I guess they found me. Kinda sucks. I also gave up on insurance. Its pretty much useless here in Korea. I was hit and insurance refused to do anything. I know others who were in accidents and even had to pay out because that is the system here. And they had insurance!

[J Rock]

Burn it!

[12ax7]

You bozos who aren't insured could and should end up doing time in jail if you cause a car accident and can't pay up for the repairs on the other vehicle(s) and the health care costs of those injured. That's what happened to the asshole who ran a red light and nearly killed my wife and the driver of another car. Caused about 18 million won in damage to the two vehicles he hit (5 on ours and 13 on the other). It's not just the injuries that was a problem. Our insurance ended up paying for the repairs, so our premiums went up. When it came down to selling our car, we got close to nothing for it because it had been in a major accident.