Compensation awarded to occupants of building with insufficient earthquake resistance

The Yokohama District Court has ordered that an architect office and building inspection company pay compensation of 1.4082 billion Yen (17.6 million USD) to owners of the 37 apartments in St. Regis Tsurumi after it was established that the building has insufficient earthquake resistance.

The building was inspected by Nippon ERI, who noticed that the building's strength did not meet standards and requested that the architect office correct the mistake. The mistake was corrected on paperwork in handwriting and ERI failed to notice the forged revision.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Hulic purchases Ginza building from Recruit

Hulic announced on January 27 that they have acquired the Recruit Ginza 7 Building from Recruit. The retail and commercial building is located at the Ginza Nishi 6 Chome crossing. The building has 9 stories and 5 basement floors and was completed in 1962. The land is 1500 sqm and the total building area is 19,790 sqm.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Kyoto Court ruling on renewal fees

The Kyoto District Court has ruled that the maximum apartment renewal fee cannot exceed 20% of the annual rent paid on the property.

On February 29th, the court made a ruling on a court case involving a 25 year old tenant who was suing her landlord for the return of her renewal fee. The judge ruled that a renewal fee that does not exceed 20% of one year's rent is appropriate, and ordered the landlord to return part of the tenant's renewal fee.Read more

by Zoe Ward

LaSalle purchases expat apartments in Shinjuku, to be re-sold individually

LaSalle Investment Management have purchased an expat apartment building in Shinjuku and will be selling off the apartments individually.

Crest Court Sadohara was purchased by LaSalle's SPC in August 2011. It was previously acquired by Broad Edge Advisors in 2009 and was originally a rental-only building aimed at the high-end expat market.Read more

by Zoe Ward

McDonalds to purchase retail spaces across Japan

McDonald's Holdings Japan have embarked on a plan to purchase up the buildings that house their McDonalds stores across the country.

Currently, the majority of McDonalds stores are leased, but in the next several years the company plans to purchase the land and buildings of 200 to 300 stores.Read more

by Zoe Ward

128 new apartment buildings in March

According to real estate data from Mercury, there will be a total of 128 new apartment buildings on sale in the greater Tokyo area in March 2012. The buildings will contain a total of 13,680 units, which is an increase of 39% from March 2011.

Tokyo's 23 wards will see an additional 4,570 new units, Western Tokyo will see 2,066 new units and Yokohama/Kawasaki will see 1,233 new units.Read more

by Zoe Ward

Tepco to sell off 70 ~ 80% of their real estate assets

Tepco's building for sale in Minato-ku

As Tepco's financial situation worsens rapidly, they are being forced to sell off more real estate in order to pay for the growing compensation to victims of the nuclear power plant disaster.

In September 2011, Tepco began selling off some of their large real estate holdings. The real estate included company dormitories and retreats. So far, Tepco has sold 40 properties for a total value of 6 billion Yen (75 million USD).Read more

by Zoe Ward