South Korea creates fast-track property permit support center with 45-day deadline

South Korea will require its new fast-track support center for real estate development approvals to reply to requests from developers and local governments within 45 days, under a decree promulgated in the Official Gazette on 3 November 2026. The measure is Presidential Decree No. 36798, an amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Management of Real Estate Development Projects, and it enters into force on 13 November 2026. It implements Act No. 21632, promulgated on 12 May 2026 with the same 13 November start date.

The amendment was approved at a Cabinet meeting and published in 관보 (Official Gazette) No. 21353 of 3 November 2026. It carries the signature of President Lee Jae-myung, with countersignatures from Prime Minister Han Seong-suk and Land Minister Hong Ji-seon, the minister responsible for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The decree inserts a wholly new Chapter 3-2 into the enforcement decree, headed “Support for authorisations and permits of real estate development projects”, made up of two new articles, 19-2 and 19-3.

A center run by a senior ministry official

The support center created by the new Article 19-2 is led by an official drawn from the senior civil service corps of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, named to the post by the minister. The head of the center directs its work under the minister’s authority and answers to him directly.

The decree leaves the internal organisation of the center to be settled by the minister, who is also tasked with issuing the public notice that will set out how requests are actually filed. The center’s mandate is confined to the two tasks listed in the parent statute: support on the interpretation of the laws and regulations governing authorisations and permits, and support for coordination on their procedures and content.

The 45-day clock and the power to demand documents

The core obligation is a hard deadline. The new provisions set the following rules:

• Developers and heads of local governments may ask the center for support whenever they need help with the interpretation of permitting rules or coordination on the procedure and content of an approval.
• The center must notify its conclusion within 45 days of receiving the request.
• Where circumstances so require, that period may be extended once only, by up to a further 45 days.
• To do its job, the center may demand opinions or documents from the developer, the head of the local government or any related institution.
• The manner of filing is to be fixed by public notice of the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Expert institutions: designation, publication and revocation

Article 19-3 sets up a second layer of support through designated expert institutions, which the minister may appoint from two categories of body:

• Public institutions under Article 4 of the Act on the Management of Public Institutions.
• Research institutes under Article 8 of the Act on the Establishment, Operation and Promotion of Government-Funded Research Institutes.

Any designation must be announced in the Official Gazette or on the ministry’s website. The minister may revoke it where an institution has performed its duties poorly through intent or gross negligence, or where it has failed to carry out the work without justification or is judged unable to continue. Designated institutions must report their business plan for the current year and their results for the previous year to the minister by 31 January each year. Operating details beyond that are again left to the minister.

The same decree also corrects a cross-reference in Article 2 of the enforcement decree, updating the citation of the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Maintenance of Empty Houses and Small Housing to Article 2(1)(3)(b).

What it means for the market

The change gives developers and municipal governments a formal channel, with a statutory clock, for the legal and procedural disputes that routinely stall housing and urban development projects. For local authorities it creates an obligation to route contested permitting questions through a ministry body that must answer in weeks rather than months, while the possibility of designating public institutions and state-funded research institutes as expert backers gives the center analytical capacity it would otherwise lack.

Source: 관보 (Republic of Korea Official Gazette), No. 21353, 3 November 2026, Presidential Decree section, p. 8 (official reference: Presidential Decree No. 36798).