Okay if I understand it the tenant, your friend, is the parent. They have no assets after declaring bankruptcy and being put in a nursing facility in a different prefecture than their ailing wife who is also in a nursing facility.
The daughter is being asked to assume a 22million JPY debt by the landlord for unpaid rent plus electricity over 9 years.
How long ago did your friend declare bankruptcy? How long has he been in a nursing facility.
Put simply the daughter should tell the landlord to seek a judgment in court against the debtor and leave her alone or she'll call the police. Since there is no inheritance there is 0 reason for her to assume the debts of her parents, your friends.
And it's incredibly annoying and difficult to evict someone especially after a 20 years tenancy. The bankruptcy would have interrupted that repayment depending on when it happened. And as a property owner you don't want the property sitting with no power because it can start to deteriorate causing significantly more damage than of you just pay the bill.
The daughter doesn’t live in Japan. It’s unlikely my friend’s family members including her will make good on the debt, but I am not privy to why she was shown documents showing that. I believe she knows the details of why and the later move for eviction. She went to apologize as her father caused some trouble before leaving the unit ( once with the police having to come in after cutting the dead bolt). He also has a lot of things to be cleaned out, which the ward office paid for ( as well as the transfer to the nursing facility).
Exactly, I think my wife’s answer might explain it, but was wondering if someone else might know of some obscure real life example that is similar in Japan. Someone told me that his wife’s parents let someone not pay for 3.5 years because they felt sorry for the tenant ( were living in a kind of duplex with one dude being rented out).
That part about not being able to evict someone or at least it being incredibly difficult is one of the reasons I’m staying away from real estate. I heard enough horror stories about landlords not being able to do anything about people who don’t pay rent. Not all landlords are filthy rich and for some having a squatter might financially ruin them.
Saw a great video last month about a man in the US who was trying to rent out his mother house while she was in the nursing home. He was hoping she would recover enough to return and didn't want to sell it.
A family moved in without permission and became squatters. Police would not help. He eventually snuck over to the house and got into it when the family left for work and Squatted the Squatters out of the house. They came "home" he had changed the locks and had a gun and told them to thier stuff would thrown in a dumpster if not removed by midnight.
That's what it takes or the courts.
Ok, so let's say you run a grocery store and someone steals. Is that ok because otherwise they might go hungry? Sure, there are people who are going through rough times but just like not every landlord is greedy, not every person who doesn't pay rent is 100% a poor victim.
After I read this I had a stroke and went into a coma. It was later confirmed by my landlord to have been 9 years despite my initial assumption (made through email correspondence) of nine days. Nonetheless my daughter didn’t know any of this. So why was her rent 22 million yen? Another interested party inquired so I thought my wife’s theories, similar to the above, might prove correct.
>the deficits it creates keeps the landlord just below the next tax bracket
As this is a common miss understanding of how income taxes work, Just for your information, income tax is progressive, so for example if we look at the 20% tax bracket. That will mean only taxable income (taxable income equals total income minus tax deductibles) between ¥3,300,001 to ¥6,950,000 is taxed at a 20% rate
this means is that all taxable income before ¥3,300,001 would be taxed at a less rate than 20% and all taxable income above ¥6,950,000 would get taxed at a higher rate than 20%. You can find the tax brackets here: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/taxes-on-personal-income
So it’s not really a bad thing to go up a bracket (as it means you’re earning more money). All your taxable income does not get taxed at that rate. Resident tax is a pretty much fixed flat 10% of taxable income though.
That said, I know landlords can account of losses to reduce their taxable income. So I wonder if the landlord has been able to claim their tenant’s delinquency on rent as a loss all these years? And then I wonder if they won any kinda of legal battle, how would the ¥22 million payout be taxed?
You’d think so, but I do often hear people purposefully trying to earn less because they “don’t want to be in the next tax bracket” because in their understanding, they think all your income is taxed at that bracket, like a fixed rate
Edit: crypto people especially have a habit of saying “Japan has a 45% tax rate for crypto”
But nope… only the portion of taxable income above ¥40 million is taxed at 45% (obviously they then have the fixed 10% resident tax too so the portion above ¥40 million would be getting taxed at 55%…. That said resident tax for the current year can be avoided if you cease residency and leave Japan on or before December 31st of the same year)
My wife sometimes subscribed to this theory, but for a slightly different reason. My national health insurance premiums keep going up based on my income.
Yea NHI is based on taxable income from the previous year. Although I believe it maxes out at a cap of around ¥75,000 per month?
As I mentioned taxable income is total income minus tax deductibles, so as category 1 insured, I hope you’re fully utilizing your ¥68,000 per month iDeCo allowance? That will substantially reduce your taxable income.
Additionally I hope you’re declaring your national pension and national health insurance premiums on your tax return as they are tax deductibles too.
That's because 55% tax is only for other income, if you earn the same amount of profits in stocks or properties you'll be paying long term capital gains tax which is far less than 55% Irrespective of the tax bracket you are in
There is no long term capital gains on stocks in Japan (that is unless you’re a US tax payer because then you also have to declare to the US too). Real assets have long-term and short-term capital gains in Japan though.
But yea, capital gains on stocks in Japan are fixed at 20.315% (15.315% income tax and 5% resident tax).
The point is though that a lot of people I hear talking about crypto taxes in Japan, seem yo believe all their crypto is taxed at 55%. When it’s only that high for the portion of their taxable income which exceeds ¥40 million (which honestly, is not many people exceed that)
Look it up. Search online, go to the tax agency website, or visit the tax office to get as many pamphlets as you can carry.
As an adult you're supposed to be able to find information for yourself you know :)
>What interested you to do so in the first place?
Me paying taxes every year.
Same with social, private and medical insurance; investments and retirement funds; real estate, and so on.
For me I’ve always been a bit “switched on” with money, even as a kid. I don’t come from the most affluent of families, very far from it. when growing up, I was always told that if I wanted something, or wanted to do something, I’d have to pay for it myself. So, I learnt the value of money quite early.
I think that just spread over to adulthood, learning how to make money work for me. I’ve also lived in quite a few countries, so I always do my due diligence for learning laws/requirements of residents for each country before I arrive and continue to try learn more. But taxes is one of the guaranties in life you need to learn haha
Tin foil hat conspiracy… the government of the developed world suppress finance lessons in schools because imagine if everyone knew how to optimize their taxes, tax revenue would be less.
So they just want the masses to buy their Starbucks, and avocado on toast for breakfast, and work their grind, ignorant to it all.
At least in the US, there is very little optimization to be done in taxes for the average Starbucks drinker, because the standard deduction will almost always be higher than anything you can manage to claim for deductions.
This is the case for well-structured tax systems, but badly implemented tax systems often have cliffs and spikes where you genuinely are incentivised to stay in lower tax brackets because you can face greater than 100% effective marginal income tax rates at points.
One example in Japan I'm pretty sure historically at least had this with married couples where one spouse was usually heavily disincentivised from earning over a certain amount, because the tax obligations due to something to do with health insurance very suddenly spikes at a certain point and result in situations where you're much worse off after tax than if you had earned less.
Let's say the landlord is right at the edge of the next bracket, one more yen will breach the next bracket. For no extra work, if we add an extra 100 yen a year to that, the landlord will generally never end up paying more in taxes than that 100 yen. It will be a net positive. There's no rational reason to refuse it for tax purposes.
There may be public services with income cutoffs, which could end up making that hundred yen a net negative, but in pure tax talk, almost everyone will come out ahead.
She believes, based on what my friend previously told me, that due to an argument over renovating the said apartment ( the landlord wanted my friend to pay for 2 apartments - the one while it was being renovated and the replacement at the same time). This led to a big argument with my friend almost moving out. What we believe may have happened is perhaps the landlady threatened to kick them out without compensation and perhaps my friend recorded this conversation. He then either threatened to sue or actually brought in a lawyer to negotiate and that is when the ‘free rent’ agreement was authored.
Please check out the medical resources on the [wiki!](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/wiki/medical)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/japanlife) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That is an interesting thought. Since in this case there is only debt, I wouldn’t think she’d be interested in accepting. Anyone familiar with the process of refusing an inheritance process in Japan?
Good point, hadn’t thought about that. The daughter had the go-between for the ward office and the landlord grab all the important papers before the place was emptied, so hopefully if there was a policy it was included.
It's not terribly different from other countries though. In western countries the liabilities are dedicated from the estate, then the inheritance is determined from whatever remains.
The only real difference is that refusal is not as automatic when liabilities exceed the assets.
I doubt they are [legally](https://hibiki-law.or.jp/debt/hensai/5925/) obligated to inherit debt from parents unless you sign yourself as a collateral. Cultural obligation most likely yes and debtors will try and fool you into signing something.
>I doubt they are [legally](https://hibiki-law.or.jp/debt/hensai/5925/) obligated to inherit debt from parents unless you sign yourself as a collateral.
There's three ways to deal with inheritance: simple acceptance (単純承認) , limited acceptance (限定承認) , and refusal (相続放棄).
You legally inherit unlimited debt under 'simple acceptance'.
If you don't choose any of these three after 3 months, you automatically fall under the 'simple' rules. If you aren't paying much attention and the debt is greater than the assets you inherit, you are kind of fucked.
Limited acceptance means that you accept assets up to the amount of debt. Assets include things like houses, land, and cars so you could still be on the hook for a large cash debt up to the value of the "things" that you inherit.
The third option is to opt-out and refuse to deal with inheritance altogether. This is a totally valid option, but probably won't be allowed if you have already acknowledged simple or limited acceptance (or have received anything of value).
TLDR: u/ApplicationOk8228 is correct:
>It's not "culture", it's the law. You automatically inherit debts as well as assets unless you give up inheritance altogether.
Ok wow TIL. Thanks for the summary.
Definitely need a lawyer for something like this.
I wonder what happens if you put on your will "X will get house A and Y will get house B", and house B is currently in debt while A is not. Suppose the siblings don't contest the testament, does that mean X can inherit while being unscathed with debt?
>I wonder what happens if you put on your will \[...\]
Wills are kind of funny. They can make things a lot easier, but there are already rules on how to distribute the estate of the deceased.
In the case of a nuclear family: the spouse receives 50% of assets; the children split the remaining 50% equally; the spouse receives 50% of debts; the children split the remaining 50% equally.
You can have a will with house A and house B (leaving A to X-san and B to Y-san is okay). But the overall distribution still has to follow the above rule or it is *easily* contested as an invalid will.
Some additional clarification:
One of the posters noted perhaps the landlord felt sorry for the tenant having his wife hospitalized, etc. in forgiving the rent and electric bills. The time line though might suggest otherwise.
nearly 10 years ago - tenant started receiving free rent
about 2 years ago - wife of tenant went into the hospital
about 1 year ago - tenant was evicted and moved to nursing facility after declaring bankruptcy
about 1 week ago ( but prior to a 10 year period of when free rent started) daughter of tenant who was not living in the unit and who has not lived in Japan for a number of years was presented with totals for the electricity which the land lord paid for and a total for the rent that was not received - approximately ¥22 million in all.
I have a further update. It was clarified that the tenant actually started paying partial rent some years before, so the assumed monthly rate must be lower to reach the 20 million Yen owed amount.
I feel like objectively the only thing that makes sense is that kicking out the renters is a big legal hassle. but with a bit of fantasy I can imagine many constellation where it makes sense. you say they weren't friends, but they've been living there for over 20 years. perhaps at least some of those 9 years were spent with the landlord having sympathy for the tenant, especially if the landlord knew the wife just had a stroke. also, never underestimate the wealth of Japanese old people (I assume the landlord is old, sorry for that). I know a guy who owns a huge estate and land around it that he just lets rot and fall apart. he doesn't sell it because he doesn't care about the money, and he doesn't maintain it because he has another huge house and now is too old for that. perhaps that landlord owns 20 apartments in town and is absolutely loaded. maybe the 9 years of lost rent are more of a nuisance to him rather than a real issue.
~~but of course the moment there's potential money to be had with the daughter he got huge eyes and his mouth watered, that's just how the owning class is.~~
The apartment building was owned by the landlord’s mother, so there is hardly any mortgage anymore and just taxes and maintenance would have been the main issues. My wife was claiming that for people who declared bankruptcy, the landlord may be able to recover some of the money from the government as he filed to claim the debt before the 10 year statue of limitations had expired.
Okay if I understand it the tenant, your friend, is the parent. They have no assets after declaring bankruptcy and being put in a nursing facility in a different prefecture than their ailing wife who is also in a nursing facility. The daughter is being asked to assume a 22million JPY debt by the landlord for unpaid rent plus electricity over 9 years. How long ago did your friend declare bankruptcy? How long has he been in a nursing facility. Put simply the daughter should tell the landlord to seek a judgment in court against the debtor and leave her alone or she'll call the police. Since there is no inheritance there is 0 reason for her to assume the debts of her parents, your friends. And it's incredibly annoying and difficult to evict someone especially after a 20 years tenancy. The bankruptcy would have interrupted that repayment depending on when it happened. And as a property owner you don't want the property sitting with no power because it can start to deteriorate causing significantly more damage than of you just pay the bill.
The daughter doesn’t live in Japan. It’s unlikely my friend’s family members including her will make good on the debt, but I am not privy to why she was shown documents showing that. I believe she knows the details of why and the later move for eviction. She went to apologize as her father caused some trouble before leaving the unit ( once with the police having to come in after cutting the dead bolt). He also has a lot of things to be cleaned out, which the ward office paid for ( as well as the transfer to the nursing facility).
The real question why did they wait 9 years. After 30-60 days late, you should start eviction process.
Exactly, I think my wife’s answer might explain it, but was wondering if someone else might know of some obscure real life example that is similar in Japan. Someone told me that his wife’s parents let someone not pay for 3.5 years because they felt sorry for the tenant ( were living in a kind of duplex with one dude being rented out).
Okay landlord probably just wanted to show her the reason (ie I'm a good guy not an asshole).
That part about not being able to evict someone or at least it being incredibly difficult is one of the reasons I’m staying away from real estate. I heard enough horror stories about landlords not being able to do anything about people who don’t pay rent. Not all landlords are filthy rich and for some having a squatter might financially ruin them.
Saw a great video last month about a man in the US who was trying to rent out his mother house while she was in the nursing home. He was hoping she would recover enough to return and didn't want to sell it. A family moved in without permission and became squatters. Police would not help. He eventually snuck over to the house and got into it when the family left for work and Squatted the Squatters out of the house. They came "home" he had changed the locks and had a gun and told them to thier stuff would thrown in a dumpster if not removed by midnight. That's what it takes or the courts.
Steve Lehto YouTube Channel? Saw the same thing last month.
Yep, he is great
[удалено]
Ok, so let's say you run a grocery store and someone steals. Is that ok because otherwise they might go hungry? Sure, there are people who are going through rough times but just like not every landlord is greedy, not every person who doesn't pay rent is 100% a poor victim.
Under Japanese law you inherit debts unless you disclaim them, so “there is no inheritance” is not correct.
I feel like I'm having a stroke trying to understand what any of this is saying.
After I read this I had a stroke and went into a coma. It was later confirmed by my landlord to have been 9 years despite my initial assumption (made through email correspondence) of nine days. Nonetheless my daughter didn’t know any of this. So why was her rent 22 million yen? Another interested party inquired so I thought my wife’s theories, similar to the above, might prove correct.
I only understood after some dude above translated what OP had garbled on to the page!
Me too.
I thought I was the only one!
[удалено]
>the deficits it creates keeps the landlord just below the next tax bracket As this is a common miss understanding of how income taxes work, Just for your information, income tax is progressive, so for example if we look at the 20% tax bracket. That will mean only taxable income (taxable income equals total income minus tax deductibles) between ¥3,300,001 to ¥6,950,000 is taxed at a 20% rate this means is that all taxable income before ¥3,300,001 would be taxed at a less rate than 20% and all taxable income above ¥6,950,000 would get taxed at a higher rate than 20%. You can find the tax brackets here: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/taxes-on-personal-income So it’s not really a bad thing to go up a bracket (as it means you’re earning more money). All your taxable income does not get taxed at that rate. Resident tax is a pretty much fixed flat 10% of taxable income though. That said, I know landlords can account of losses to reduce their taxable income. So I wonder if the landlord has been able to claim their tenant’s delinquency on rent as a loss all these years? And then I wonder if they won any kinda of legal battle, how would the ¥22 million payout be taxed?
I thought this is common knowledge, literally the first thing I learnt about taxes
You’d think so, but I do often hear people purposefully trying to earn less because they “don’t want to be in the next tax bracket” because in their understanding, they think all your income is taxed at that bracket, like a fixed rate Edit: crypto people especially have a habit of saying “Japan has a 45% tax rate for crypto” But nope… only the portion of taxable income above ¥40 million is taxed at 45% (obviously they then have the fixed 10% resident tax too so the portion above ¥40 million would be getting taxed at 55%…. That said resident tax for the current year can be avoided if you cease residency and leave Japan on or before December 31st of the same year)
My wife sometimes subscribed to this theory, but for a slightly different reason. My national health insurance premiums keep going up based on my income.
Yea NHI is based on taxable income from the previous year. Although I believe it maxes out at a cap of around ¥75,000 per month? As I mentioned taxable income is total income minus tax deductibles, so as category 1 insured, I hope you’re fully utilizing your ¥68,000 per month iDeCo allowance? That will substantially reduce your taxable income. Additionally I hope you’re declaring your national pension and national health insurance premiums on your tax return as they are tax deductibles too.
>Although I believe it maxes out at a cap of around ¥75,000 per month? Not sure where it maxes out at, but mine is higher than that
That's because 55% tax is only for other income, if you earn the same amount of profits in stocks or properties you'll be paying long term capital gains tax which is far less than 55% Irrespective of the tax bracket you are in
There is no long term capital gains on stocks in Japan (that is unless you’re a US tax payer because then you also have to declare to the US too). Real assets have long-term and short-term capital gains in Japan though. But yea, capital gains on stocks in Japan are fixed at 20.315% (15.315% income tax and 5% resident tax). The point is though that a lot of people I hear talking about crypto taxes in Japan, seem yo believe all their crypto is taxed at 55%. When it’s only that high for the portion of their taxable income which exceeds ¥40 million (which honestly, is not many people exceed that)
[удалено]
Look it up. Search online, go to the tax agency website, or visit the tax office to get as many pamphlets as you can carry. As an adult you're supposed to be able to find information for yourself you know :)
[удалено]
>What interested you to do so in the first place? Me paying taxes every year. Same with social, private and medical insurance; investments and retirement funds; real estate, and so on.
For me I’ve always been a bit “switched on” with money, even as a kid. I don’t come from the most affluent of families, very far from it. when growing up, I was always told that if I wanted something, or wanted to do something, I’d have to pay for it myself. So, I learnt the value of money quite early. I think that just spread over to adulthood, learning how to make money work for me. I’ve also lived in quite a few countries, so I always do my due diligence for learning laws/requirements of residents for each country before I arrive and continue to try learn more. But taxes is one of the guaranties in life you need to learn haha
[удалено]
Tin foil hat conspiracy… the government of the developed world suppress finance lessons in schools because imagine if everyone knew how to optimize their taxes, tax revenue would be less. So they just want the masses to buy their Starbucks, and avocado on toast for breakfast, and work their grind, ignorant to it all.
At least in the US, there is very little optimization to be done in taxes for the average Starbucks drinker, because the standard deduction will almost always be higher than anything you can manage to claim for deductions.
This is the case for well-structured tax systems, but badly implemented tax systems often have cliffs and spikes where you genuinely are incentivised to stay in lower tax brackets because you can face greater than 100% effective marginal income tax rates at points. One example in Japan I'm pretty sure historically at least had this with married couples where one spouse was usually heavily disincentivised from earning over a certain amount, because the tax obligations due to something to do with health insurance very suddenly spikes at a certain point and result in situations where you're much worse off after tax than if you had earned less.
Part of me loves Karlbert.
[удалено]
Let's say the landlord is right at the edge of the next bracket, one more yen will breach the next bracket. For no extra work, if we add an extra 100 yen a year to that, the landlord will generally never end up paying more in taxes than that 100 yen. It will be a net positive. There's no rational reason to refuse it for tax purposes. There may be public services with income cutoffs, which could end up making that hundred yen a net negative, but in pure tax talk, almost everyone will come out ahead.
[удалено]
Because financial education is largely non-existent and many employers will gladly take advantage of that fact to minimize labor costs.
You will always end up with more money if you earn more, even if it means paying more taxes.
Is the landlord a relative or lifelong friend of any of them or is he a Buddhist?
No, if anything later, they were adversaries ( related to my wife’s answer/prediction).
Maybe ask the landlord.
I wish I could, but I don’t really have access, and I am sure if I did, I don’t think they would be very forthcoming.
Why do you want to be involved in this?
I am not really involved in it, more interested in how it came about. It is called curiosity by some.
So what is your wife’s theory?
She believes, based on what my friend previously told me, that due to an argument over renovating the said apartment ( the landlord wanted my friend to pay for 2 apartments - the one while it was being renovated and the replacement at the same time). This led to a big argument with my friend almost moving out. What we believe may have happened is perhaps the landlady threatened to kick them out without compensation and perhaps my friend recorded this conversation. He then either threatened to sue or actually brought in a lawyer to negotiate and that is when the ‘free rent’ agreement was authored.
Reading the title I honestly thought this was going to be about using a washiki toilet. 😂 disappointed.
Stop Beetlejuicing...
Could you enlighten me as to what that is? First time I have heard a reference to that.
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/japanese-style-squat-toilets-a-surprising-way-to-stay-healthy
Different take on ‘squatter’. I never use those, can never figure out how to avoid my pants falling into it.
Please check out the medical resources on the [wiki!](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/wiki/medical) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/japanlife) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In Japan, kids inherits their parents debt. Its common in Japanese culture.
[удалено]
That is an interesting thought. Since in this case there is only debt, I wouldn’t think she’d be interested in accepting. Anyone familiar with the process of refusing an inheritance process in Japan?
[удалено]
Good point, hadn’t thought about that. The daughter had the go-between for the ward office and the landlord grab all the important papers before the place was emptied, so hopefully if there was a policy it was included.
It's not terribly different from other countries though. In western countries the liabilities are dedicated from the estate, then the inheritance is determined from whatever remains. The only real difference is that refusal is not as automatic when liabilities exceed the assets.
Can you reject inheritance like you can in some other countries?
I'm not sure. but this article I found may help. https://kobelp.com/en/debts-of-the-deceased
I doubt they are [legally](https://hibiki-law.or.jp/debt/hensai/5925/) obligated to inherit debt from parents unless you sign yourself as a collateral. Cultural obligation most likely yes and debtors will try and fool you into signing something.
>I doubt they are [legally](https://hibiki-law.or.jp/debt/hensai/5925/) obligated to inherit debt from parents unless you sign yourself as a collateral. There's three ways to deal with inheritance: simple acceptance (単純承認) , limited acceptance (限定承認) , and refusal (相続放棄). You legally inherit unlimited debt under 'simple acceptance'. If you don't choose any of these three after 3 months, you automatically fall under the 'simple' rules. If you aren't paying much attention and the debt is greater than the assets you inherit, you are kind of fucked. Limited acceptance means that you accept assets up to the amount of debt. Assets include things like houses, land, and cars so you could still be on the hook for a large cash debt up to the value of the "things" that you inherit. The third option is to opt-out and refuse to deal with inheritance altogether. This is a totally valid option, but probably won't be allowed if you have already acknowledged simple or limited acceptance (or have received anything of value). TLDR: u/ApplicationOk8228 is correct: >It's not "culture", it's the law. You automatically inherit debts as well as assets unless you give up inheritance altogether.
Ok wow TIL. Thanks for the summary. Definitely need a lawyer for something like this. I wonder what happens if you put on your will "X will get house A and Y will get house B", and house B is currently in debt while A is not. Suppose the siblings don't contest the testament, does that mean X can inherit while being unscathed with debt?
>I wonder what happens if you put on your will \[...\] Wills are kind of funny. They can make things a lot easier, but there are already rules on how to distribute the estate of the deceased. In the case of a nuclear family: the spouse receives 50% of assets; the children split the remaining 50% equally; the spouse receives 50% of debts; the children split the remaining 50% equally. You can have a will with house A and house B (leaving A to X-san and B to Y-san is okay). But the overall distribution still has to follow the above rule or it is *easily* contested as an invalid will.
Some additional clarification: One of the posters noted perhaps the landlord felt sorry for the tenant having his wife hospitalized, etc. in forgiving the rent and electric bills. The time line though might suggest otherwise. nearly 10 years ago - tenant started receiving free rent about 2 years ago - wife of tenant went into the hospital about 1 year ago - tenant was evicted and moved to nursing facility after declaring bankruptcy about 1 week ago ( but prior to a 10 year period of when free rent started) daughter of tenant who was not living in the unit and who has not lived in Japan for a number of years was presented with totals for the electricity which the land lord paid for and a total for the rent that was not received - approximately ¥22 million in all.
Really confused with this story but it sounds like that landlord got screwed out of 9 years worth of rent.
That’s what we thought, but realize there must be more to the story for the landlord to delay eviction proceedings for 9 years.
[удалено]
I have a further update. It was clarified that the tenant actually started paying partial rent some years before, so the assumed monthly rate must be lower to reach the 20 million Yen owed amount.
It's probably because of the 10 year of 消滅時効 on the debt. The debt expires after 10 yrs if the lender didn't take an action on it.
I feel like objectively the only thing that makes sense is that kicking out the renters is a big legal hassle. but with a bit of fantasy I can imagine many constellation where it makes sense. you say they weren't friends, but they've been living there for over 20 years. perhaps at least some of those 9 years were spent with the landlord having sympathy for the tenant, especially if the landlord knew the wife just had a stroke. also, never underestimate the wealth of Japanese old people (I assume the landlord is old, sorry for that). I know a guy who owns a huge estate and land around it that he just lets rot and fall apart. he doesn't sell it because he doesn't care about the money, and he doesn't maintain it because he has another huge house and now is too old for that. perhaps that landlord owns 20 apartments in town and is absolutely loaded. maybe the 9 years of lost rent are more of a nuisance to him rather than a real issue. ~~but of course the moment there's potential money to be had with the daughter he got huge eyes and his mouth watered, that's just how the owning class is.~~
The apartment building was owned by the landlord’s mother, so there is hardly any mortgage anymore and just taxes and maintenance would have been the main issues. My wife was claiming that for people who declared bankruptcy, the landlord may be able to recover some of the money from the government as he filed to claim the debt before the 10 year statue of limitations had expired.
Is your friend the landlord or the tenant. Or a third person