Screenshot from the YouTube channel ‘Hyun Dong-yeop’s Highest Guard’

The $7,875,000 (10,500,000,000 KRW) jeonse dispute over a luxury villa in Hannam-dong surrounding singer-actor Lee Seung-gi has escalated into a YouTube battle of exposs, entering a new phase. Cha Gawon’s side, the Fiacre Group chairman and head of OneHundred, abruptly disclosed his messenger conversations with Lee Seung-gi and flatly denied the jeonse fraud allegations raised by ‘PD Notebook’.

On the 8th, attorney Hyun Dong-yeop, legal representative for Chairman Cha Gawon, uploaded a video titled ‘[Trailer] The Secret of MBC and Lee Seung-gi’s Hannam-dong Jeonse Fraud’ on the newly launched YouTube channel ‘Hyun Dong-yeop’s Highest Guard’.

In the video, attorney Hyun asserted, “From my perspective, this is not a jeonse fraud. I think (it is Lee Seung-gi who is) committing a fraud in order to terminate the exclusive contract,” claiming that the essence of the controversy is a deliberate frame to secure Lee Seung-gi’s termination of his exclusive contract.

The video then revealed messages presumed to have been sent by Lee Seung-gi to Chairman Cha. The person believed to be Lee wrote, “I have even stocked the rice pot and left it in. Thank you for helping us move into La Nuvo,” “Living together gives a sense of stability,” and “The house is so nice, and because the sitter loves the house so much, my daughter looks even more lovely,” expressing strong satisfaction with moving in.

In particular, regarding the ‘appraisal’ that became an issue in calculating the jeonse deposit, messages were also shown in which the person believed to be Lee said, “About ‘takgam’ (desktop appraisal), is it something I do not need to worry about?” and “Hope the appraisal goes through smoothly.” On this basis, attorney Hyun directly criticized, “Mr. Lee Seung-gi knew all about the downward adjustment. While saying he was scammed and claiming a breakdown of trust, Mr. Lee Seung-gi, move out.”

Attorney Hyun also said, “If, according to appraiser Jo Jeong-heun, Lee Seung-gi, Cha Gawon, and Wando Suhyup are the three parties that are co-principals in a jeonse fraud, then I cannot understand what part of this is supposed to be a jeonse fraud at all,” pointing out a logical contradiction in the allegations raised by the broadcast.

He continued, “We had all of Chairman Cha Gawon’s phones forensically examined. And there really is a lot that could upend the entertainment industry. Starting with Mr. Lee Seung-gi, we will reveal everything one by one,” previewing a large-scale expos in the main video to be released on the 11th.

This back-and-forth over the truth surfaced after the June 2 broadcast of MBC’s ‘PD Notebook’, which covered how Lee Seung-gi moved into the luxury villa ‘La Nuvo’ in Seoul’s Hannam-dong on a jeonse deposit of 10.5 billion won, then considered the top level in the market.

On the program, Lee Seung-gi’s side said, “Chairman Cha Gawon kept recommending that we move in on a jeonse, saying the home above his was vacant and that he wanted to live close to us for support,” adding, “We refused multiple times, but after he pleaded that he had no one to rely on, we eventually moved in.”

Chairman Cha Gawon, who appeared on MBC’s ‘PD Notebook’ to address various allegations.

They also claimed, “We had to move in on a jeonse in a hurry, but they kept delaying the appraisal and did not set a precise deposit. After we moved, they demanded a jeonse deposit more than three times higher than the first figure we heard,” adding, “When we said we did not have that large a sum, Chairman Cha said he had arranged all the loans and would bear the interest to the end, but he is not even paying the loan interest he promised.”

According to ‘PD Notebook’, the luxury villa was constructed by Pimo Group, which was led by Chairman Cha Gawon, and Lee Seung-gi and Baekhyun are understood to be living there with jeonse deposits of 10.5 billion won and 16 billion won, respectively. The broadcast said that the maximum secured amount of the loan on one unit originally taken out in the name of Chairman Cha and his spouse was only about 3.6 billion won. However, in the process of converting this into jeonse loans in the names of Lee Seung-gi and Baekhyun, the loan size expanded abnormally to more than triple.

Moreover, the institution that executed the huge loan in the 10-billion-won range was not a major financial institution in Seoul but a Suhyup located in Wando, South Jeolla Province, adding to the suspicions. Suhyup explained the review process for Baekhyun’s 16-billion-won loan, saying, “Internally, we look at the surrounding market and whether Mr. Byun Baekhyun has income and the ability to repay, and we evaluate based on that.”