Estate Planning and Creating a Will in Japan (Part 2)
Written by Catherine O’Connell
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In Part 1 of this article series Sanae Sekiya and Catherine O’Connell collaborated to jointly publish an article on Wills and Estate Planning. This Part 2 in the series is a 2022 update on two aspects to supplement your estate planning.
1. Real estate registration to be mandatory
There will be a new law effective from April 1, 2024 (Reiwa 6 in the Japanese calendar), which will require registration of real estate （fudousantooki不動産登記）mandatory. The revised law will require heirs/beneficiaries to apply to register their real estate properties within three years since the day they acknowledge their inheritance of such property (i.e. the date that they come to know they have inherited the property). This is because there are many abandoned properties (shoyuusha fumei tochi 所有者不明土地)in Japan, which are creating a real headache for authorities and causing a nuisance in neighborhoods and society in general.
Why is this happening?
This problem occurs because there are owners of real estate, who have failed to register the said properties for decades, causing problems with such abandoned properties after they pass away. When the “real owners” - that is, the person entitled to own the properties due to estate succession (souzoku相続) has neglected to register the property as theirs, following inheriting such property, this results in generating many successors – such as the children and also the grandchildren of the owner who inherits but never registers the said properties. You may be astounded to learn that the size of these abandoned properties in Japan is said to be bigger than the size of the entire Kyushu region!
As mentioned abandoned land and buildings cause harm to the environment and devalue the surrounding neighborhood and such aged/worn-out buildings and dilapidated wood has potential to collapse at any moment. This problem has been happening for a long time due to the loophole in the law that real estate registration has not been mandatory under law, and the reason that owners of land need to pay tax for real estate registration so they avoid this process. The new law should work to resolve these problems over time.
Here are some useful links on this topic:
Images of abandoned properties can be seen via the following link https://www.gov-online.go.jp/useful/article/202203/2.html
You can watch a video of the new policy here: https://nettv.gov-online.go.jp/prg/prg23910.html
The following link shows the outline of the new law in English and Japanese: English: https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/outline/50/905R308.pdf Japanese: https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001362336.pdf
The second topic is:
2. Notarial deeds can be made online from next year (2023)
It was reported in the news media on July 19, 2022 (see below link) that the Japanese government is working on a policy to make changes to the Notary Act (koushouninhou公証人法) to allow notarial deeds - such as wills, sales contracts for land and buildings - to be made online. There will be a series of application procedures involved, such as submitting an application form, attaching supporting documents and a verification of descriptions of property and signature of the applicant.
Link to news article: https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20220718-OYT1T50234/
In Closing
Just a reminder here, Catherine is not a specialist in Estate Planning/Wills/Real Estate and she does not advise in this area of the law in Japan. These two insights in Part 1 and Part 2 are a co-authored series. Sanae is available for advising on these areas of the law in Japan. Contact details for Sanae and Catherine may be found at the end of Part 1 in this article series here.
