Compliance rules relaxed for house-to-commercial conversions
On June 25, 2019, the Building Standards Act was revised. One of the interesting revisions was regarding the requirements that must be met when changing the use of an existing property.
Proposed law could allow the forced sale of abandoned land
On February 22, the Cabinet approved a bill that will allow land with unidentifiable owners to be forcibly sold off by a court-appointed trustee, thereby helping to free up some of the vast swaths of idle land across the country with missing owners.
New minpaku laws decidedly unpopular in Kyoto City
As at the end of August 2018, Kyoto City had only received 129 applications for short-term letting under the new minpaku laws that were introduced in June. Of those, 33 are located in exclusive residential zones where properties can only be rented out to guests for a maximum of 60 nights between January 15 and March 15, with some exceptions allowed for traditional machiya townhouses and homes where the host also lives on the premises. This pales in comparison to the total number of 7,028 applications made nationwide. In Kyoto Prefecture, excluding Kyoto City, only 18 applications have been received as at September 14.
Government approves new law to deal with abandoned land issue
On June 6 Japan's House of Councilors approved a new act concerning the use of abandoned land. The new law will go into effect from June 2019.
This law will grant local municipalities, private corporations and non-profits the right to use idle land for up to 10 years. This applies to land where the owners are unknown or cannot be contacted. If the owners make themselves known and object to the use of their land, the land will be returned to them at the end of the 10 year term. If the owners do not object, the term may be renewed.Read more
Developers lose appeal on unfinished apartment building in Bunkyo-ku
The two developers of a 107-unit condominium in Tokyo’s Bunkyo ward that lost its building permit two months prior to completion have lost their appeal against the city in a court ruling on May 24.
Construction of the 8-storey ‘Le Cinq Koishikawa Korakuen’ building began in 2013. In early November 2015, just two months prior to completion, the city revoked the building’s construction certificate due to a major design flaw, effectively halting construction. Under the Building Standards Act, multi-dwelling buildings must have emergency escape stairs providing a direct exit outdoors. This building’s emergency stairs exited into the garage, which is 2.5 meters above ground level and 19 meters from the outside. Read more