1. The defendant's appeal is dismissed.

2. The costs of appeal shall be borne by the Defendant.

Purport of claim and appeal

1...

1. The Plaintiff’s absence of dispute is not a dispute between the parties to the dispute, with respect to the fact that the Plaintiff was offered to purchase E from a broker assistant of the D Licensed Real Estate Agent Office in order to purchase the Gangnam-gu Seoul apartment, and without direct intent with the Defendant, paid KRW 1.5% of the purchase price (970 million) on June 12, 2018 to the Defendant bank account in the amount of KRW 15 million (970 million) on June 12, 2018.

2. Determination of KRW 15 million paid by the Plaintiff to the Defendant is a kind of deposit granted based on the continuous negotiation that the Plaintiff wishes to conclude a sales contract, and where a sales contract is established later, it shall be substituted for the partial payment of the down payment. However, where a sales contract is not concluded, it constitutes the so-called “provisional contract deposit” which is scheduled to be returned.

In order to establish a contract, the agreement between the parties is required to be reached, and such agreement is not required with respect to all matters that constitute the content of the contract, but there is a need to agree with respect to its essential or important matters, or at least on standards and methods that may specify the future specifically.

However, it is difficult to recognize that there was an agreement between the Plaintiff and the Defendant on the important matters of the sales contract, such as the amount and time of intermediate payment, delivery of apartments and time of transfer of ownership, etc., or on the standards and methods that can be specified in detail in the future, solely with the testimony of the Plaintiff and the Defendant as witness F of this Court, and there is no other evidence to acknowledge it. Accordingly, the sales contract between the Plaintiff and the

Meanwhile, Article 565 of the Civil Act, which is a provision on the down payment received on the premise of the conclusion of the contract, is not applicable to the provisional contract deposit, and there was an agreement between the Plaintiff and the Defendant to pay the provisional contract deposit as penalty.

(b).