Background
A landowner discovered one day that their forest land was being used as a "dulle-gil" — a public walking trail. A local government had installed hiking paths, decking, stairs, signage, fencing and other facilities on the private land without the owner's consent (no land use authorization) and opened it to the public. The owner protested through a criminal complaint and petitions to the government ombudsman, but the authorities replied only in substance that "the facilities may be removed, but the trail itself cannot be withdrawn." Changchun represented the landowner.
The Obstacles — Two Daunting Problems
Where someone occupies and uses another's land without title, the owner can recover "unjust enrichment" equal to rent. Here, however, two walls stood in the way.
1. Who should be held answerable? Responsibility for designating the route, implementing the project, tendering the works, managing the facilities, maintenance, and public signage and responses to complaints was scattered across the metropolitan and the basic local government, leaving the "occupying and managing entity" to be named as defendant unclear. 2. The anticipated counterattack. The authorities were likely to deny unjust enrichment altogether by invoking the doctrine that "the owner, by opening the land to passage by the general public, waived exclusive rights of use and profit" (Supreme Court en banc, Jan. 24, 2019, 2016Da264556).
How Changchun Helped — Unlocking the Impasse With an Information Disclosure Request
Rather than filing suit immediately, Changchun (attorney Jaesun Yoon) designed a precisely targeted information disclosure request under the Official Information Disclosure Act (arts. 5 and 10) as the opening weapon.
① Identifying the occupying and managing entity across six stages: we requested the documents revealing, respectively, the entity responsible for designating the route, implementing the project, tendering and contracting the works, owning and managing the facilities, maintenance, and public signage and complaint responses — pinning down who the true occupier was.
② Establishing the allocation of responsibility between the metropolitan and basic local governments: we requested the inter-agency agreements, delegation and entrustment records, and subsidy grant and settlement materials to confirm the responsible entity and how responsibility was shared.
③ Securing the basis for the scope of occupation and the amount of unjust enrichment: route maps, survey results, occupied-area calculation tables, budget and expenditure records gave us the foundation for calculating rent.
④ Accumulating grounds to block the "waiver" doctrine: we assembled facts defeating any presumption of waiver of use and profit rights — that the owner had never consented, had contested the matter through a complaint and petitions as soon as they learned of it, and had continued to pay property tax throughout.
We further noted that even where the land falls within an urban natural park area (National Land Planning and Utilization Act art. 38-2), ownership remains private and no free right of occupation accrues to the local government, and that the restriction on private rights under article 4 of the Road Act does not bar a claim for return of unjust enrichment either. On that basis we built a multi-track strategy pursuing the unjust enrichment claim in parallel with negotiations for a negotiated purchase (compensation).
Faced with the daunting question of "where to even begin on my own land," Changchun chose to first pin down the scattered facts and the responsible entity through an information disclosure request before litigating. The case shows that designing precisely what to claim, and against whom, is itself the starting point of victory. (Outcomes may differ depending on the facts of each matter.)