HyunCheon Kim
Translated by Soyeon Lee

The Sun Auto Repair & Body, Inc. , the only Korean Repair & Body shop, located at 170 Mystic Avenue, in Medford, is being forced to relocate its shop.

On July 7th, the Sun Auto Repair & Body, Inc’s current Landlord in document, 170 Mystic LLC, has sent a letter to the Sun Auto Company asking it to be dislocated from its current repair shop.

In the letter, 170 Mystic LLC’s Manager, Young-Tae Cho stated that, "the lease between Sun Auto Repair & Body, Inc (“Sun Auto”) as tenant and 170 Mystic LLC as landlord for the property at 170 Mystic Avenue, Medford, which Sun Auto now occupies, expired on April 30, 2010 and (Sun Auto) did not send written notice of an election to extend the lease pursuant to its option”. 

He also warned the company that if the Sun Auto fails to “vacate by August 31, 2010, I shall employ the due course of law to evict” the Sun Auto.  Unfortunately, the President Son and the Mr. Cho are close family members.

Just last May, the Sun Auto Repair, Inc received a foreclosure notification from its old Landlord and barely got out of it. But with their eviction notification, the company will have a hard time getting out of this one.

In the April of 2000, when the Sun Auto Repair & Body Inc. was relocated from Summerville to Medford, most of people thought that the company’s property, including the building and the land, was bought at $1,200,000 (down-payment of $200,000, owner-finance of $1,000,000) by the President Son.  

So the Korean community was shocked to learn that the company’s building was not owned by the President Son.  Even close friends of both Cho and Son believed that the President Son had all the rights to the property.

The former President of the Korean Society of New England, Young-Ki Kim, recalls that when he moved his office to the second floor of the Sun Auto Company's building in 2000, he only "discussed the issue of relocating the office with Mr. Son (then, Chairman of the Board of KSNE), but did not discuss it with  Mr. Cho(then, Secretary of KSNE)".  He said he thought that “Mr. Son had the rights to the building property”.

On July 14th, Mr. Son had written a 9-paged letter titled, "Help Me" with information regarding his current situation.  It seems almost unavoidable that the ownership dispute may happen.

In his letter, Mr. Son explains how he "did not know he would be in this disarrayed situation"; he also went on to say that he is "working with his lawyer and will  take an action on the court, if it is necessary".

To hear 170 Mystic LLC’s side of the story, many have contacted the Manager Cho, but he has not answered any phone calls or messages yet.  Young-Tae Joe had succeeded the former President of KSNE Kim from 2003 to 2006. While he was President, KSNE’s office was located above the Sun Auto Repair shop.

The Sun Auto Repair & Body Inc, President Suk-Gu Son, expressed his remorse by saying that he has been having "sleepless nights knowing that money has brought an end to the relationship with his own family member and hindered his future", but he assured the Korean community that he will "be back with a new location for the company soon".