Background
A creditor who had lent money to A, the former tenant of a building owned by our client (the landlord), obtained a court order attaching and authorizing collection of A's claim against our client for return of the lease deposit, and sued the landlord for collection, demanding payment of that deposit (about KRW 300 million) directly. Changchun represented the landlord (the defendant).
The Issue — Does "That Claim," the Subject of the Collection Order, Still Rest With the Landlord?
For a collection claim to succeed, the claim attached and subject to collection (A's claim against our client for return of the deposit) must actually exist, in that amount, at the time of the collection order. In the meantime, however, A had exited the lease and a new tenant, B, had moved in. The fight therefore centered on ① whether A's deposit refund claim remained in place and subject to collection, or had passed to B, and ② whether, even if it remained, any amount was actually receivable after set-off.
How Changchun Helped — Defending With the Doctrine of Assumption of Contract and the Deposit Settlement Structure
Changchun (attorney Jaesun Yoon) constructed the substance of the lease relationship with legal precision.
① Characterizing the new lease (interpretation of intent): the new contract was concluded immediately after the earlier one ended; the deposit, monthly rent, management fees and leased location were all identical; and the new tenant, B, paid no separate deposit but instead took an assignment of A's deposit refund claim in its place. On this basis we established that this was not a simple new contract but an assumption of contract (comprehensive succession), under which the tenant's "status" under the existing lease passed to B. This applies the principle that on an assumption of contract the assignor's contractual rights and obligations pass to the assignee intact, retaining their identity (Supreme Court, May 14, 2015, 2012Da41359, among others).
② The limits of an attachment's effect: we made clear that attachment of a claim only prohibits the garnishee (our client) from "paying" the debtor (A); it does not prevent the parties from disposing of the legal relationship giving rise to the claim (the lease) by way of an assumption of contract. In other words, as the tenant's status passed to B, so did the ownership and content of the deposit refund claim, following the lease relationship.
③ Automatic deduction from the deposit: a lease deposit is returned only in the amount remaining after the tenant's obligations, such as unpaid rent, are automatically deducted on termination. We proved through the settlement structure that B, who had taken over the lease, had accumulated substantial rent arrears, so that after deduction no deposit remained to be returned.
Outcome
The court accepted Changchun's arguments and dismissed the plaintiff collecting creditor's claim in full, freeing our client (the landlord) entirely from a large collection claim.
This case wove together complex doctrines of assumption of contract, assignment of claims, attachment and deduction around a lease deposit refund claim, and was decided by pressing to the end on the question of who held the claim subject to collection, and how much of it remained. Changchun protected our client by combining the substance of the facts with the applicable doctrine in a dispute where intricate claims and lease principles intersected. (Outcomes may differ depending on the facts of each matter.)