On December 24, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) announced a revision to the Facilitation of Reconstruction of Condominiums Act which is intended to make it easier to sell off an older apartment building and land in order to speed up redevelopment.
Under the revision, the voting ratio to sell off the building and land will be reduced to 80% for kyu-taishin apartments that do not meet earthquake-resistant codes (the ratio was originally 100%). It is important to note that this revision does not apply to all apartments built before 1981. It only applies to those that failed an earthquake-resistant inspection.
At the end of 2013, there were 6,010,000 apartments across Japan. Of those, approximately 17% are in buildings built to the older earthquake codes (called kyu-taishin). The figures are higher for condominiums, with a third of condominium apartment buildings across Japan built to the older codes.
By April 2014, there were only 196 cases where kyu-taishin apartment buildings were redeveloped, accounting for just 1.4% of the total number of kyu-taishin apartments.