When you live in a country which has different cultural background from your country, the unexpected is sure to happen to you. I will introduce you about the cases of troubles which actually happened before and you may face with high probability.

Let me get straight to the point. All troubles’ seeds can be picked up before it sprouts out if you are well aware of a lease agreement and a special agreement. If the factor of troubles is related to interpretation of contents of a lease agreement, you need to hire a lawyer.

But in most of cases, troubles will cause because either one of a resident and a landlord may misunderstand the contract conditions. So if you understand contents of a lease agreement fully, most of the problems can be solved without calling a lawyer to mediate mutual complaints unless either one of them doesn’t stubbornly accept the misunderstanding of a contract.

Repeating reading a lease agreement protect your position as an occupier.

Obligations to avoid troubles with other residents

A shared house regulates rules on public spaces like a living room and a kitchen because co-residents share these living spaces diary. These rules are mentioned on a lease agreement.

These rules apply to Usage Compliance Obligations on a contract, which is a regulations that require you to use common spaces in the way that it expects you to use as a contract mentions. For example, when you use a common living room, you need to use a room as keeping rules regulated by a contract. If a contract mentions a living room is a place to make yourself at home but not a place to hold a party to make a noise and disturb other residents’ tranquility, your behaviors of making a big noise or bringing some people there to give a party violates this obligation.

Usage Compliance Obligations are basically about whether you obey the contract conditions. Most of the conditions that summarizes rules on public spaces of a shared house mention regulations based on residents’ behaviors that can be judged by our common sense prior to living together with someone else.

It is a bit abstract but as seen in a common sense, if your behavior gives disadvantage to co-residents, your behavior may violate this obligation. Of course, whether you are questioned to suffer a penalty because of violation of rules is based on whether there is a contract condition of the rule you violated.

The most important thing is preserving appropriate distance between you and co-residents not to invade mutual privacy by respecting each other.

If you are against the rules and lose landlord’s trust, you may be forced to terminate a contract as a penalty.

Interpretation of common sense

There are some rules you may not be convinced with because of different cultural background. You may not realize unspoken rules which is regarded as common rules in Japan.

If you find rules which make you think strange because of cultural gap between your country and Japan, firstly, you keep and understand all the rules mentioned on an agreement without trying to understand why. This is a first step to avoid troubles with other residents.

Trouble cases and its solutions

The following cases are actual compaints of residents who faced a trouble with a landlord

A Landlord intend to increase a rent when making a re-contract

Complaint

I made a lease agreement of a shared house costing me 70,000 yen for a monthly rent and 20,000 yen for a monthly common service fee. This rent price is a special price which was offered during a discount campaign.

I made an agreement during this campaign and was explained that this rent price would keep reflecting as long as I stay in a shared house when I moved in. Re-contract can be made every three months but a landlord told me to add 5000 yen to a campaign rent price from the next re-contract. I will seriously be in trouble if a rent may be increased as often as I re-contract.

Solutions

If a landlord performs a regular procedures in accordance with an agreement and a fixed lease agreement (a shared house contract) gives effect to allow a landlord to increase a rent price, the above complaint is not justifiable.

Please look at the column of “Rent change” of fixed lease agreement conditions on this page.

Lease agreement conditions of a shared house that you must know before making a contract.

Basically, a fixed lease agreement restricts rent change during a contractual term. But a landlord can change a rent when concluding a re-contract with the resident again if there is a mutual agreement about increasing a rent on a special agreement.

In the above complaint, there is room for negotiating the price with landlord but unless a fixed lease agreement adds a condition that the rent price of the previous contract reflects the rent price of the next contract after making re-contract by law amendment or something, you can’t desire to restrict the increase of a rent by a lease agreement.

If you are in the situation above, your concrete solution for the increase of a rent is negotiating the price with a landlord or finding another a share house to move in which satisfies your conditions.

I was told to move to another house after moving in

Complaint

I moved in a shared house costing me 60,000 yen monthly as 3 months contract. After moving in, a landlord asked me to move to another house because he plans to renovate a house I am living in now for women only.

Another house is not good for me to live in. The environment around the house is not good. Is it possible to deny his offer?

Solutions

A shared house contract assigns a room as a individual ownership space for a occupier. A landlord must not change one-sidedly a occupier’s room to live in at landlord’s convenience

For example, only the fact that the house plans to be renovated for women only cannot turn out to be the sufficient reason to terminate a contract of a occupier during a fixed lease agreement period.

Even if this agreement were a a regular lease agreement, this kind of cancellation offer couldn’t be justifiable reason to terminate an agreement.So your denial against this offer is justifiable.

A landlord doesn’t take care of installing equipments which was mentioned on ads online

Complaint

I searched a shared house online and I made a lease agreement with landlord directly after room inspection. A shared house information on a website said TV would be set in a living room at an early date , bathrooms are installed in the second floor and the first floor and entire rooms have completely renovated.

A website said if room renovation have not done completely yet when you move in, no rent should be paid. However, after I moved in, a landlord claims me to pay a rent although every rooms has not renovated completely and moreover, no TV has been installed yen in a living room and no bathroom is in the second floor. Only one kitchen stove works but other kitchen equipments are terribly broken.

I asked a landlord to make good promises verbally but he has not been taking care of these things

Solutions

If a lease agreement mentioned clearly about equipments of common spaces, you can request a landlord to renovate bathroom in the second floor and add one more kitchen stove. If a landlord ignores this compliance stubbornly, a landlord’s behavior is regarded as a breach of obligations on a lease agreement. You can terminate a lease agreement and claim for damages.

I was claimed for the damage

Complaint

I live in women-only floor of a shred house. A shared house management agent told me if I would lodge a male friend in my room, if there were residents’ agreements in the same floor, bringing my male friend to my room would be allowable.

Recently, I lodged my male friend in my room for a couple of days. When I explained this facts to a new woman resident, a woman moved out at night on that day. I was claimed for the damage of 100,000 yen which a agent returned back to a woman. Do I need to pay for the damage?

Solutions

Lodging male in a occupier’s room is allowed under a certain condition of a lease agreement and if she kept the condition, this is not a violation of usage compliance obligations. So even if other residents move out, she doesn’t have any reasons to be inquired into responsibility.

To avoid futile troubles, what you need to do

As you read the cases above, actually, there are a lot of lessees of shared house who don’t understand perfectly a lease agreement and a lease law which is a base of a lease agreement .Many landlords and lessee agents relatively have the authority to request residents to obey their unique rules even if the rules are totally against a lease agreement.

To avoid these troubles yourself, all you need to do is just two things which are

Actually, people who faced the above cases could protect themselves by doing just two things. If you don’t want to suffer disadvantage while you live in a shared house, you know much better about a lease agreement and base lease agreement system.

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