What happens on contract day

In short

• Before any contract is signed, a licensed transaction specialist must walk you through a statutory disclosure document, showing their licence card as they do.

• That explanation has run online for sales since 2021, and the documents themselves can be electronic since 2022, with your recorded consent.

• After signing, the broker owes you a second document recording the deal's terms, delivered without delay.

• The famous protections people half-remember, the 20 per cent deposit cap and cooling-off, do not apply at all when a private individual sells you their house.

• Settlement day's choreography comes from your contract and the arrangements around it, not from any statute. The registration-identification notice arrives after completion, not in the room.

• Most of what this article describes is a duty someone owes you by law, which is exactly why it is worth knowing which things are not.

Contract day in Japan is mostly reading. The reading is in Japanese, the documents are prescribed by law, and the law is specific about who must explain them to you and when.

That specificity is your friend. It also has edges, and buyers get hurt at the edges more than at the centre.

The explanation before you sign

Japanese brokerage law does not let the contract come first. Before it is concluded, the broker must have a licensed transaction specialist explain to you, in writing and in person or online, a statutory disclosure covering the property and the deal: the registered rights on the land and building, the planning restrictions, the state of water, power and gas, every sum of money changing hands beyond the price itself, the cancellation terms, and the penalty arrangements, among a longer prescribed list. The specialist shows you their licence card as they begin. If a recent building-condition survey exists, its summary is part of the disclosure.

Two dates modernised this without changing its substance. Since March 2021 the explanation itself may run over video for sales, and since May 2022 the documents may be delivered electronically instead of on paper, provided your consent is on record and the file is delivered in a form you can keep and print. Those are two separate permissions, often blurred into one in secondhand accounts.

The disclosure is aimed at you, the buyer. The law does not stage an equivalent performance for the seller, which tells you whose protection this hour is.

Sit in it properly. It is the one legally scripted moment where everything known and material must be put in front of you. In a moogo transaction, it is explained to you in your language alongside the Japanese documents.

The paper after you sign, and two protections that mostly do not apply

Once the contract is concluded, a second statutory document follows without delay, recording the parties, the property, the price and payment terms, the handover date and the registration timing, plus every term actually agreed: deposit money and its purpose, cancellation, penalties, loan-failure arrangements, risk allocation, liability where the property does not conform to the contract, and who bears which taxes. It is the deal's skeleton in prescribed form, and the specialist's name goes on it too.

Now the two edges.

The deposit cap people cite, no more than 20 per cent of the price, binds only a licensed dealer selling its own property. When a private individual sells you their machiya through a broker, the cap does not apply; the civil code governs instead, setting no ceiling and letting the contract vary the default rules. The default itself is worth knowing: hand-money deposits ordinarily let you walk away by forfeiting the deposit, and let the seller walk away by returning double, each only until the other side has begun performing.

Cooling-off is narrower still. It exists where a licensed dealer sells its own property and the application was made away from its offices, and it never applies between private parties. For the typical secondhand purchase this series describes, there is no cooling-off, and any plan that quietly assumes one is a plan with a hole in it.

Settlement day, honestly

This series has been strict about the line between law and practice, and settlement day is where the line runs closest to the money.

What the law fixes is a frame. In a contract where each side owes the other, the civil code lets either side withhold its own performance until the other tenders. Reading your remaining payment and the seller's handover as that pair is the standard commentary, not the statute's own words. The seller owes you not just keys but perfected title, the registration that makes your ownership assertable against the world. And the timing of the registration application is, by statute, something the contract must state rather than something the law dictates.

What the law does not fix is the day's choreography. Who sits where, the order of transfer, confirmation and handover, whether it happens in a bank branch or over a scrivener's desk: those are arranged case by case, and we found no official text that prescribes them, so this article will not pretend one exists. The judicial scrivener is the registration specialist your side will usually engage. In practice, it is the scrivener who confirms identities and documents before funds move. Engaging one is a choice rather than a legal requirement. It is also the choice practically everyone makes, for good reason.

One expectation to correct in advance: the registration-identification notice, the successor to the old paper deed, is issued after the registration completes, and reaches you afterwards. Nobody walks out of the room holding the new title, and a seller who promises otherwise is describing a document that does not exist yet.

What lands in your file

By the end, three statutory documents exist with your name on them: the disclosure explained before contract, the terms document delivered after it, and, once registration completes, the registration-identification notice that stands in for the old deed. Keep all three together with the survey and tax documents this series has collected; the file you assemble buying is the file that answers every question when you eventually sell.

For the buyer abroad, this day connects to everything the from-abroad article covered: the proof-of-address chain, the tax-agent appointments and the reporting clocks all key off the dates fixed here. The contract sets the dates; that article is what the dates set in motion.

Questions buyers ask

Is the disclosure available in English? The statute prescribes the document, not its language, and practice is Japanese. Translation and explanation in your language are the broker's service to arrange, and at moogo they are part of the transaction rather than an extra.

Can I do all of this without flying in? The explanation can run online for sales, the documents can be electronic with your consent, and signing by proxy is established practice covered in the from-abroad article. The unresolved piece remains settlement itself, which is arranged case by case.

What if the seller just cancels? Under the ordinary hand-money rules, a seller who walks away before you have begun performing returns double the deposit, and your contract can set stricter or different terms. Which rules govern your deal is written in the terms document, which is why it is read rather than filed.

Is my deposit protected while the deal is pending? Where a licensed dealer sells its own property, statutory safeguarding rules apply above thresholds and their outline belongs in the disclosure. Between private parties there is no equivalent scheme, and the deposit's safety rests on the contract and on who holds the money, a point to settle before paying it.

Who checks that the seller actually owns the house? The registered rights are the first item in the statutory disclosure. In practice, the scrivener you engage re-verifies identity and title documents before settlement. That is the layered answer, and it is a reason the scrivener is worth their fee.

Contract day rewards the buyer who knows which promises are the law's and which are the contract's. The law's part is fixed and identical everywhere in Japan; the contract's part is yours to read before you sign it. To walk a specific deal through this sequence in your language, tell moogo what to look for.

Written against published law and official sources as of 25 August 2026; rules change. 081株式会社 is a licensed real estate broker, not a tax or legal practice. This is general information, not advice on your situation, and case-specific decisions rest with the competent authority and your own professional.