Buying a home in Japan

Three calendars run in parallel: the buyer's withholding, your filing season, and two tests on 1 January.

Two laws, one zone map, and a chain of checks that all run from public records before you offer.

Which promises are the law's and which are the contract's, and the two protections that do not apply.

A foreigner living in Japan has options. A buyer abroad has a short list, and the banks put it in writing.

The document that stands in for a residence certificate, the clocks that start at acquisition, and what nobody can promise.

Stamp duty, commission, and two taxes calculated on the assessed value rather than the price.

Frontage, the machiya label, zoning, and which record answers each question.

A month's rent is the cheapest way to test an address before a purchase fixes it for years.

Nine million empty homes is the headline. The discount is deferred information, and it is readable before you pay it.

Price gradients, tax parity and four different lodging regimes, with no ranking at the end of it.

Nationality goes into an index. What actually becomes public is your name in Roman letters, and your contact's address.

Three builders, three numbers, no common structure. What moves the figure is settled before pricing begins.

Fixed asset tax, city planning tax, the land discount that depends on use, and the fees a flat never stops charging.