Under Article 47 Item 1 of Japan's Real Estate Brokerage Act, agents are prohibited from intentionally failing to disclose any matters relating to the building that may have a serious affect on the client’s decision to proceed with the transaction.
This means that real estate agents are obligated to notify clients of defects to a property, such as suicide, murder or other unnatural deaths, but only if the agent is aware of these defects at the time. There may be times when an agent is unaware, in which case they cannot be held liable. This can occur if the landlord or seller was purposely withholding this information from the agent, or if there was an unnatural death or murder that was not reported to the property owner or management company. The owner of the property, however, may be held responsible even if they were unaware of the defect.
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