It is always very difficult for foreigners to rent an apartment in a Japanese society that requires people to prepare a guarantor although there is no one to rely on for those who come to Japan for the first time.
I recently found an article about a foreign student from Vietnam, who faced difficulty in renting an apartment in Japan.
She came to Japan to study Japanese and aim to get a certain full-time job in Japan. She firstly lived in an apartment contracted through a Japanese language school she went to for limited contracting term until she completed her language course.
After she completed her studying course, she needed to move out of the apartment because of contract expiration. During the extension period, until she moved out, she needed to find a new place to live in but she wasn’t able to find anyone who was willing to become her guarantor, even a guarantor company as well, although she satisfied other requirements to rent an apartment than having a guarantor.
She somehow managed to find a Japanese to be her a guarantor, who she happened to meet in a friendship meeting between Vietnamese and Japanese. Until she somehow found this Japanese guarantor, she spent 6 months in total to look for a guarantor to rent an apartment.
You might understand how exclusive it is for Japanese to lease an apartment to a foreigner with no mercy.
Why Japanese apartment owners hesitate to lease to foreigners?
The conserning matters that an apartment owner have negative feeling to leaseing to foreigners are
- Intelligibility of Japanese language
- Continuous payament without defection
- Smooth communication with neighbors
- Difficulity in finding a garantor
- The difference of lifestype
- Understanding of restoration to original state
- Staying with multiple people without permission
- Understanding of restoration to original state
There is a case that an apartment owner demands key deposit two times more than its oridnary price to foreiger applicants to hedge the above risks. Some foreigners recevive this treatment as flag discrimination, which produces negative emotional chain between a Japanese leaser and a foreign leasee.
In fact, aparment leaser’s risks are not firmly protected by any legal policy so apatment owners tend to ask the burden of risk avoidance fully to leasee. So, it is said to be difficult for an apartment owner to make good relationship with even Japanese leasee because in current situation, an apartment owner imposes all the risks on leasing business to leasee side.
Therefore, there are a lot of buildings with vacant rooms because of not easing the standard. Even though apartment owners in Japan know the current circumstance and urge to accept applicants for vacant roomes to be fully occupied, they face reality of Japanese unique leasing custom that they can’t hardly displace a resident without having reasonable ground.
The past president about damage claims for refusal to rent by a foreign applicant
In the past, a foreign applicant filed a lawsuit for refusal to rent an apartment at Kyoto district court. The case was decided in favor of the accuser and ordered the defendant to pay for the damages.
There was an adjudgment for a lawsuit against an apartment owner that a Korean woman demanded the damages of 2 million and 30 thousands yen for refusal to rent an apartment at Kyoto district court. The chief judge, Mitsu Hiro Ikeda approved illegality that “refusing lease agreement conclusion for the reason of nationality is not allowable.” and ordered an apartment owner to pay for the damage of 1 million and 100 thousand yen.
2007/2/10 at Kyoto district court
However, the tendency of Japanese apartment leasing custom gradually accepts foreign applicants and easing the leasing standard.
Current vacant room rate is more than 10 percent and the leasing market is surely going to further and further shrink. Unless accepting various types of applicants including foreign applicants, apartment owners end up digging their own grave. Lease brokers will face a bitter battle as well.
One of a large number of reasons for leaser’s refusal is leaser’s stereotype to foreign applicants unexpectedly. Apartment leasers automatically link foreigners to troublemakers who deliberately try to escape from payment or don’t keep rules without falling step with other residents in the community.
They really need to communicate with foreign applicants openly to understand each other.
How you can smoothly find a guarantor
When you rent an apartment in Japan, you face the difficulty in finding a Japanese guarantor. It is quite difficult for any foreigners who have no one to rely on in Japan to secure a guarantor.
If you can find no one who is willing to become your guarantor at all, you will ask it for a guarantor company but there are a lot of cases that a guarantor company also refuse your offer and requires you to find a guarantor to avoid risks. It is such a super-wired rule that foreign applicants need to find another guarantor to use a guarantor company that is doing business by representing a guarantor!!.
We Japanese can hardly say that the leasing industry establishes a system that foreigners can smoothly rent an apartment. However, fortunately, there are some guarantor companies for only foreign applicants. For example, Global Trust Network. If you are really in trouble to find a guarantor, using such a company is one solution.
In addition, Apartment leasing brokers for only foreigners have increased these days and they provide information about apartment owners who adjust your situation flexible and collect leasing information on apartment tolerant to foreign applicants. Staff can speak English fluently. You may put your less effort to find a place to live in by using such leasing brokers.
The most important thing for foreigners to find a room in Japan is to keep approaching an apartment owner and finding a Japanese guarantor continuously. This sounds not like a reasonable solution but because the leasing industry doesn’t have a positive attitude towards accepting foreign applicants in the current situation, you can’t help relying fully on your effort.
Floor plan or apartment information on the internet are mere superficial information. Actually, until you meet an apartment owner and get real intention out of an owner, I doubt you meet real apartment information because there is a case that an owner just follows the industry’s custom that foreign applicants are not applicable for the moment without having any reasons.
So, if you directly go to a leasing broker’s office and ask directly if there is a vacant apartment for foreigners, there will be any progress on your apartment hunting. You just give it try and don’t give up until you will find a place to live in Japan.