Foreign Buyers

2026/11/7

Buying a Japanese house without being in Japan

Buying a Japanese house without being in Japan It is legally possible, and possible is not the same as straightforward. Here is the whole sequence, from finding a property to receiving the keys, with the overseas obstacle at each stage set out before you ...

2026/11/7

Owning property in Japan from abroad: the tax paperwork nobody mentions

Owning property in Japan from abroad: the tax paperwork nobody mentions You may need three separate tax representative appointments in Japan, not one. And if you rent the property out, a fifth of the rent may never reach you. It goes to the tax office bef ...

2026/11/7

Buying an apartment means buying the building's finances

Buying an apartment means buying the building's finances You are not acquiring a flat. You are acquiring a share in a collective that owns a building, along with its repair fund, its arrears, its decisions and whatever it has been putting off. The unit is ...

2026/11/7

The bill that arrives five months after you thought you were finished

The bill that arrives five months after you thought you were finished A completed purchase, a registered title, and nothing left to do. Then a letter reaches somebody else entirely, with two weeks left on a deadline the owner has never heard of. This is o ...

2026/11/7

The land category can stop the sale entirely

The land category can stop the sale entirely A rural Japanese house often comes with land around it, and some of that land is legally farmland. Farmland cannot simply be bought. It requires permission, the permission has conditions, and for an overseas bu ...

2026/10/26

What you must verify yourself before buying property in Japan

What you must verify yourself before buying property in Japan Public records will tell you what a property is permitted to be. They will not tell you what it is. These are the questions that decide whether a purchase works, which offices hold the answers, ...

2026/10/22

Sometimes you buy the house and rent the ground it stands on

Sometimes you buy the house and rent the ground it stands on In Japan the land and the building are separate pieces of property, and they can have different owners. A listing that looks unusually cheap for its location is sometimes selling you the buildin ...

2026/11/7

What a cheap Japanese house actually costs

Japan’s hazard maps: what your broker must show you, and what they don’t Since 2020, a Japanese agent has been legally required to show you where a property sits on the flood hazard map. Landslide and tsunami are covered only as to whether a f ...

2026/11/7

Selling Japanese property from abroad

Selling Japanese property from abroad A buying guide that never mentions the exit has described half a transaction. Selling as a non-resident owner involves a withholding that takes a tenth of the price before it reaches you, a filing to recover the exces ...

2026/11/7

The wall holding up the land is part of what you are buying

The wall holding up the land is part of what you are buying The view is why people want the hillside plot. The retaining wall underneath it is what they acquire along with the view, and replacing one can cost more than the house standing on top. By Toru F ...

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