The aim of this study is to examine how the legal relations between stakeholders regarding the success of failure of project with the PF method in which insufficient fund is procured in the promotion of real estate project with feasible idea.
The pr...
The aim of this study is to examine how the legal relations between stakeholders regarding the success of failure of project with the PF method in which insufficient fund is procured in the promotion of real estate project with feasible idea.
The project financing (PF) of real estate means to procure necessary finance for the project that estimates future cash income based on the feasibility and profitability of the project and credit rating of the project developer in the development of real estate with a specific purpose.
Basic legal structure of PF for real estate development is formed in 3-parties legal relation among ‘developer’ who is the subject of the real estate development by planning a project, ‘the PF dealer’ who provides PF loan and ‘contractor’ who is responsible for the project construction.
In the first place, while legal relation between the developer and the PF dealer is defined by PF loan agreement. Its main contents indicates contract parties and joint surety including definition of contractual terms, purpose of loan, loan amount, and loan participation ratio, termination, withdrawal of loan and preliminary conditions, loan charges, loan interest and other expenses, repayment of loan and remuneration, lost sale profit and financial management, collateral on project site and building under construction, subordinated loan and fund supplementing agreement, joint guaranty, collateral performance, reason and action for default, transfer of rights and other issues.
Despite such provisions, there might be cases that the developer depends on excessive loan due to lack of financing or shows moral hazard, and that the management of the PF dealer is lack of responsibility that provides excessive loan making it hard to collect fund.
So, a legal improvement is required to give obligation of securing professional personnel for the PF dealer to assess credit of the developer and project feasibility together with reinforcement of responsibility of the management.
In the next place, while the legal relation between the developer and the contractor is defined by construction contract or sub-contract, unjust special provision or improper sub-contract is prohibited as per the ‘act for the fair subcontract transaction.’ Generally, as for civil construction work, standard contract document is used which includes provisions on construction milestone statement, bill of quantity, prepayment, material inspection, safety management and disaster compensation, emergency action, extension of construction period, improper construction, project price adjustment by design change or price fluctuation, payment of completion portion, completion and payment, deferment of implementation and guaranty, defect warranty, contract termination and damage compensation, construction supervisor and site manager.
Nonetheless, the developer may be lack of specialty to assess whether the contractor is fully competent or not, and the contractor depends on implementation collateral of construction price payment on the completion portion from deferment compensation and general guaranty. So, if any lawsuit arises, it is hard to secure prompt construction finance. Furthermore, if there is any delay of construction payment due to unsold state, or liquidation procedure is progressed on the project, it is necessary to establish a special provision of the development right acquisition by the contractor and the transfer of title of the building owner, and it is also necessary for the developer to receive real estate special consulting as mandatory to reinforce specialty. And, it is also required to develop a systematic device for the developer as the project company such as imposition of periodic project progress report obligation to the supervisory institution (Ministry of land, transportation and maritime affairs).
Finally, the legal relation between the contractor and the PF dealer focuses on the responsible completion of the contractor on the project and joint surety relation on the loan of the developer. The joint surety agreement of the contractor is not agreed separately from the PF dealer, but the contractor participates in the guaranty for the joint surety provision in the PF loan Agreement, where the contractor signs and seals with proper documents as joint surety. To ensure the implementation of loan, it is agreed that the PF dealer distributes 1 copy of current check with payment to the bearer in the blank check, and power of attorney of supplementary rights of the blank check on the contract date of the warranty agreement.
As such, as the PF dealer warrants the implementation of loan by the blank check instead of depending of project feasibility or future cash income, the contractor takes excessive burden to provide joint surety or to acquire loan of the developer as well as the responsibility for the construction. To the contrary, the priority of receiving construction price to the contractor is delayed to the posterior order after appropriating expenses such as loan principal and interest. As it is limited to the balance in the management account, if the sales profit is insufficient, the contractor has to take the burden fully. Accordingly, in the PF loan with non-recourse financing, it is necessary to revise the legal system by developing an obligatory standard terms and conditions that shares the risks of project loss equally among the developer, the PF dealer and the contractor.