“One extra zero” could turn a 1.8-billion-won apartment into a 17.2-billion-won winning bid—court revises auction forms to prevent errors

[Financial News] After people continued to suffer unintended losses by entering the wrong bid price at auction, the court prepared an easier-to-understand application form.
On the 30th, the Court Administration Office of the Supreme Court of Korea said it plans to introduce a new auction-day bid form, with an improved field for entering the bid price and an added warning, for use in court auctions starting on the 2nd of next month.
The existing form placed the fields for the bid price and deposit side by side, and the spaces for entering numbers were narrow. As a result, people sometimes suffered losses after entering the wrong bid price.
Examples include accidentally adding an extra zero and winning an apartment worth around 1.8 billion won with a bid of 17.2 billion won, or mistakenly entering 770 billion won instead of 77 million won.
A successful bidder must pay the sale price, but if they cannot, they forfeit the bid deposit. Even if the bidding is unsuccessful, the auction proceedings have to be repeated, so the harm is not limited to the bidder.
To address this, the court redesigned the form, placing the price fields one above the other and making them larger so mistakes would be easier to spot.
It also revised the form to make the number of digits in the deposit and bid amounts easier to distinguish, and added a warning directly below the bid-price field: “Please take care not to enter an extra 0.”
The Court Administration Office said, “We will continue to improve the relevant systems and practices to protect the rights and interests of participants in auction proceedings, including bidders, and help them take part in auctions with greater confidence.”
[email protected] Kim Hee-sun Reporter