Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tate]

Could someone possibly tell what the hell all these charges are on this bill. Cleaning the stairs? Elevator? Security? I assume thats what it is. This is my first month here and this was taped to the door of my apartment today. I think they expect me to pay a late fee of some kind being as it has the due date listed as the 12th. I of course will not pay this becuase they gave me the bill today, the 17th. But that only accounts for 8,000 of it.

Anyways I've kepted my heat at 16, and dont really ever hang out at my apartment to use water or electric for anything other than showering. This bill seems a bit steep and I almost wonder if I'm geting the waygook price. (The school owns the apartment if that has any baring on this. They do not of course own the apartment building but just our apartments.)
Another teacher who works at the same school and lives in the same building said their bill has been as high as 300,000 some months.

Anyone else paying 80,000 a month for the "managment fee"?

From what I've read that seems to be what people are paying for all their bills total ecspecially if keeping the place kinda cold as I have been doing.

[BigBlackEquus]

We had a 65,000 won management fee at my last place in Bundang.

We had A TON of additional little surcharges when the place first opened. The ajummas ran around and formed a sort of revolt/union. They got management to cut out a lot of stuff that was not needed. For example, the aparment building was paying a million won to rent a stupid water cooler and have it sitting out front in a place where nobody used it anyway. Don't know how they came to 1,000,000 won to have a stupid water cooler there, but they did. It was on the expense list, which they divided amongst all of us. We were also paying some guy 2,000,000 won to trim a few bushes twice a month! Two days work, max!

They had lots of stupid little things like that. Who knows where the money really went.

Well, the ajumma came around with a petition, which I signed. They dug into that, and my average bill dropped by nearly 80,000 won by the next month!

[KumaraKitty]

My officetel is quite new, so I pay 80,000 a month in maintenance. It's for the ajumma who cleans the halls, the security guards downstairs, the elevator, the recycling fee, stuff like that. In winter, with heat on it, I paid 190,000 for one month. Depending on how high your ceilings are and how often you use your washing machine, a new building can cost you a bundle!

[The Bobster]

The big tall high-rise apartment buildings often have large management fees attached in addition to the utilities you pay for anyway. This usually covers a lot of things you don't care about or don't use : the security guys watching the tv cameras out in that booth in the parking lot, for instance, or just cleanig or otherwise maintaining both the above-ground and underground parking areas. Probably other things I'm forgetting.

The only time I lived in a high-rise was far outside the city, outer fringes of Seoul, and the the school took care of everything except the gas and electricity, I think ... in any case, it wasn't as much as your bill.

It's probably a good idea to ask current employers about things like this before you sign a contract. I've heard people tell me that all the extra charges they get levied add up to similar to what shared apartment would cost them back home ...

[Ya-ta Boy]

The print isn't clear enough for me.

Take the bill to school tomorrow and ask them what everything is.

[crazykiwi]

Is this your first month in the apartment or Korea? A lot of people here live in villas, hence the no "wanky security guard/ noisy cleaning ajjuma/ rubbish collection at 6am in the morning/ wanky security guard" fee tacked on their bills. I live in an apartment complex, and I pay around 150 000 a month. I knew this before i moved in however so dont really mind. When my other bills total around 20,000 for phone and gas, i don't really mind. Suck it up mate, looks like you'll be paying those fees for a while. Mine drops to around 80,000 in the summer, so the end is nie. peace.

[Qinella]

You people are scaring me. I just moved into an officetel for the first time last week. The guy who lived here before mentioned something about a maintenance fee, but I had no idea it was going to run as high as 85,000 won! I'm gonna have to ask my boss to pay it for me, because that's crazy. There are at least thirty people on my floor. I have no problem with everyone just taking turns, one day out of the month for each person, to clean the hallway and wipe down the elevator! I'll gladly do it for 85,000 won! And the security guard? What good does that do me? This is Korea, not South Central LA. Good grief.

Perhaps this is one of those issues I "should've researched first"/aka should've tapped into my clairvoyance about.

Q.

[tacon101]

[SuperHero]

78,670 management fee
7,796 electricity

the rest someone else will have to help you with.

[noelinkorea]

Ok - so here is what everythng is...

as mentioned above, the 78, 670 is for your standard maintenace fee.

The others are as follows:

���������� maintenance fee for repairs - 1, 877 won
�������ϼ� sewage system - 1,592
���ְ����� external fees (external to the house/building, that is...ie. others) 9,854 won

���� simply means 'household' (so refers to your personal house hold usage, as opposed to:
���� communal/public usage...that is, your share of the costs for the building and public spaces in the building...)

so your household and communal electricity costs = �⺻����� electricity 7,796 won
���±�� electricity fund (?!seems to be for putting some money into a public fund, for emergencies maybe...) 894 won

������ water supply charges
household 891 won
communal 626 won

����� heating charges
household 49,510 won
basic fee (their monthly standard connection charge, that is...) 5,971 won

����...no idea what this means...never seen it....hhmmm, not in dictionary either, so maybe an abbreviation of some kind... It seems to indicate the amount of gas you used for heating...and probably cooking and showers, etc too 7,699 won

����ΰ��װ� overall tallied charges for the month 172, 940
�հ� (���⳻) combined calculation (if paid within the period of the payment due) 172,940
��ü�� charge for late payment 8,650
��� (������) TOTAL DUE (including late payment charge, ie. if you pay after the due date) 181,590 won


You should have paid by the 12 of April...so looks like you'll be paying that last total.

You seem to be new to Korea, so I guess you should know that if you're ina building with others, so will likely always share costs like that as above. Also, I think almost all bills have the early/late payment incentives/disincentives, so you should be prepared and always check the date!!!

Incidentally, you apartment is 17.88 pyeong in size ...useful to tell Koreans if they ever ask how big your place is...

Best wishes!

[tate]

[just because]

I honestly have never seen a maintanence bill that high ever...you must live in quite a new officetel.

However, if you have had the gas on all the time 50 000 is very cheap...expect it to be be 3 times that in winter in some cases..

All up it appears you are paying a lot but I don't think you are being ripped off...

[KumaraKitty]

[thekingofdisco]

My maintenance bill is around 80,000 a month + gas/electricity/water etc - it goes to about 165-185,000 a month.

I live in a nice officetel. It is a lot of money however. Especially when you are paying for rent too (which I do). But I like it here, location, security, facilities etc.

[princess]