Dear friends,

Seeing the following article in the news reminded me of some information
I've been meaning to share for a long time.

http://www.asahi.com/english/politics/TKY200402070165.html

> Tokyo to clean act of dirty landlords
> The Asahi Shimbun

> For tenants tired of kissing their maintenance deposits
> goodbye, the Tokyo metropolitan government plans sweeping
> changes to the shabby system exploited by greedy landlords.

> There are no clear rules on how much of the costs to clean
> or repair apartments should be covered by tenants' deposits.

Actually, the last sentence is not exactly right. The government has
published guidelines:

http://www.mlit.go.jp/jutakukentiku/house/topics/keiyaku/kaihukugaido.htm

The guidelines (in Japanese, unfortunately) focus on the concept of "genjo
kaifuku" (restoration to original condition). According to the guidelines,
you are NOT responsible for normal wear and tear. You are only responsible
for damage that you did to the apartment beyond normal wear and tear. The
guidelines help you figure out what should be considered to be normal wear
and tear.

When our family left our apartment a few years ago we were asked to pay a
lot of money to, among other things, replace all the wallpaper in the
apartment to make it as nice as it was when we first moved in (restoration
to original condition) -- even though we had been in the same apartment for
10 years! However, I had just read that the government had issued
guidelines about the meaning of "restoration to original condition" so I did
a little research on the topic.

To make a long story short, the government guidelines enabled me to get a
more reasonable agreement from the landlord. We had been asked to pay a
significant amount of money in addition to the deposit (shikikin) we had
paid. Instead, we received a good chunk of the deposit back.

Sometimes you have to be firm with landlords, who are used to intimidating
people and taking more than they deserve. I told the landlord that if we
could not work this out between ourselves that I was prepared to have the
matter settled in small claims court (this is possible in Japan). In this
respect, the goverment guidelines were a big plus. I also sent explanations
about the guidelines and the reasons why we found the landlords claims to be
unreasonable by certified mail so there could not be any dispute about what
we had or had not told the landlord.

In the end, we accepted an agreement that was not perfect (we had to pay to
replace the tatami -- even though this should not be our responsibility
according to the guidelines), but much, much better than what were almost
forced to accept.

What we did required a lot of Japanese. Still, even if your Japanese is not
good enough for you to fight on your own, it may be worth your while to get
someone to help you so that you can know your rights and tell the landlord
about the government guidelines.

Here's another related site (in Japanese):

http://www.heyasagase.com/sitelist/joho/sikikin.html

Kirk Masden