Dealing with the growing number of abandoned and empty homes across Japan is proving to be a difficult task as out-of-date property titles are making it almost impossible to track down the owners, some of whom died decades ago. In many situations the local governments are unable to take any action without the consent of the property owner, and have no choice but to let dangerous and ageing buildings rot while they embark on a lengthy and complex process to find the owners.
Between July and August, the Mainichi Shimbin surveyed 355 local governments across the country that have enacted ordinances to deal with empty homes. Approximately half of them said they had cases where they could not locate the property owner and could not take any action. Of those, a third said that the building was not even registered on the land title, which made matters worse.
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