Disposal of Vested Property

Also called: Vested Property Disposal Act

The US military government and the Syngman Rhee government sold off to private hands the factories, land and houses left behind by the Japanese.

After liberation the US Army Military Government, by Ordinance No. 33 of December 1945, took over all property in the south owned by the Japanese state and Japanese nationals. This was called vested property (jeoksan, "enemy property"). The military government sold some of it and handed the rest to the Republic of Korea under the 1948 ROK–US agreement on finance and property.

In December 1949 the Rhee government passed the Vested Property Disposal Act and sold factories, mines and houses to private buyers, mostly to those with a prior connection such as managers and tenants, below their real value and on instalments.

The sales brought collusion between politics and business, with favours for those close to power, and some firms that took over vested property grew, together with the aid economy of the 1950s, into chaebol.