7 things to know before renting an apartment in Japan

There are Japanese rules which foreigners may or may not have hard time to understand. Regarding the increasing number of foreigners choosing Japan as their new place, I thought this list would be nice for foreigners who are thinking of moving in Japan. Hope this will be helpful for you.

I used to work at the real estate company before. And I had many customers from other countries. They had a lot of excitement, but also lots of rules they needed to understand.

1. Relationship between customer, agency, apartment owner and guarantor company

2. What you need to have (visa, budget, job and consent form)

3. Pet

4. Date to move in a new apartment

5. Price breakdown

6. How to start gas and electricity

1. Relationship between customer, agency, apartment owner and guarantor company

a). Customer - This is you. You go to an agency to find an apartment for you.

b). Agency - An agency will help you to find a suitable apartment for you. Also  the agency will help a landlord to find a tenant.

c). Apartment owner( landlord) - They go to an agency, hoping that an agency will recommend their apartments to customers.

d). Guarantor company - Landlord needs to make sure that a tenant is capable of paying the rent monthly, so landlord lets you have contract with a guarantor company. What a guarantor company do is it guarantees for the rent when the tenant don7t pay the rent. Because of that, a guarantor company is also going to put you into the filter(screening) before contract. They will ask your job, income, social status as such to make sure you're able to pay monthly.

2. What you need to have

Visa - Obviously you need the valid visa to stay in Japan.

Budget - It7s better if you know how much you can afford. Depending on the price, the range of apartments will be very different. 

Residential card - You're going to need this when having a contract.

Job - A company and a landlord want to make sure the monthly payment will be done without any problems. So it's better if you have a job. It's also good if you are a student, and if you're going to work at a part time job.

Consent form - If you are under 20 years old, you're going to need the consent form from your parents.

3. Pet 

Unfortunately, if you have more than middle sized pet, you're going to have trouble finding an apartment. Apartment owners don't like pets usually. They are worried about that your pet might damage an apartment or make too much noise. And other tenants might make a complaint to an apartment owner if your pet makes too much noise. An owner don't want it to happen at any cost. 

The bigger your pet it, more the landlord won't allow you to rent the apartment. If your pet is smaller, although options for the apartment will be probably limited, you still have a change to rent an apartment.

4. Guarantor and emergency contact

While working at the real estate company, i often found that a foreigner didn't know the difference between guarantor and emergency contact.

Guarantor - Person who will be responsible for the rent when the tenant won't pay the rent.

Emergency contact - Person who the company will contact when the tenant won't pay the rent

The difference between them is that guarantor has to pay the rent when the original tenant won't pay the rent, while emergency contact doesn't.

5. Date to move in

Please please don't expect that you come to Japan, find the apartment, and move in there in one day. A company needs to do the paperwork before you become able to to move in. Now it is still possible to do that in one day, depending on which apartment you're going to rent. Some companies are flexible, but others are not. I recommend yo to contact an agency one month before the expected dat to move in.

6. Price breakdown

a)~d) are paid monthly. e)~i) are paid only when having a contract.

a). 賃料: rent

b). 管理費・共益費: maintenance fee

c). 水道: water 

d). 電気 / ガス: electricity / gas 

e). 保証金: fee for a guarantor company

f). 火災保険: fire insurance

g). 仲介料: commission fee

h). 敷金: deposit ( When leaving the apartment, you can get this deposit back. But if the apartment you rented was too damaged, you wouldn't be able to get it back. The deposit fee would be used to fix the damage.)

i). 礼金: fee for the owner (explained below)

礼金 is the fee you just pay for the landlord, basically giving the money to him/her. This 礼金 thing is the old tradition/culture from the old time. Back in day, we didn't have the enough number of apartments for people. When we found the landlord to let us rent the apartment, we used to give money to him/her as to express the appreciation for the apartment. That till remains to this very day even though there is the enough number of apartments you can pick now. And this 礼金 won't go away easily because we still need the place to stay otherwise you can't rent it!

But don't worry! You can still find the apartments that you don't have to pay 敷金 and 礼金 for. It limits the options of apartments that you can find, but you still can rent the good apartment.

7. How t start gas and electricity

Great! You've finally found the apartment you wanted. Now it's time to live there.

a). gas

You need to call the gas company, and tell them that you're going to start to live there. They need to come to your apartment and check if there is any gas leak first. Then you can start to use the gas. Once the date to move in is decided, it's better to make an appointment with the gas company, otherwise you won't be able to use it. Also they are going to ask how you want to pay the fee. The easiest way is just let them send the bill to your post monthly. You can take that bill to a convenience store, and pay the fee there.

b). electricity

You need to call the company for this too. But for this, you don't need to make an appointment, and meet them at the apartment. You call them, and they tell you to flip up the circuit breaker.

It's the best to ask an agency for help to set up those things.

So there you have it!

I tried to make this article brief. Hopefully this helps you to understand a bit about how Japanese real estate works.

Hoppefully this helped you to understand even a bit about how Japanese real estate works.

And if you have any questions about any (not only renting, but anything), please feel free to ask a question!

Thank you for reading :)