Do you own property in Japan?/Ｄo you have a company in Japan?

Are you concerned about being asked to sign legal documents in Japanese only?
Do you wish to transfer your title in property to your own company?
Do you need to keep your company properly maintained?
We can take care of everything, and it won’t cost you a fortune in legal fees.

We understand that Japanese legal services are not as internationally minded as they could be; sometimes a client from overseas, even non-resident, will be asked to sign documents in Japanese only. Here at SilkRoad Legal we can provide full bilingual documents both in Japanese and in English, and can explain them to you in English. This goes beyond simply translating the documents, we can also give you a background explanation of Japan style law, and how it may differ to that of common-law style. For example, let’s assume you and your partner want to buy a property in Tokyo as joint tenants with the right of survivorship. However, in Japan, “right of survivorship” does not exist. Thus, if you require something similar to “right of survivorship”, we would advise you to prepare a will, for example, and that in Japan, probate is not applicable etc.

If, as an individual (i.e. natural person), you own property in Japan, you may need to think about and prepare for “exit”.
You may need to prepare a will pursuant to Japan laws, so that the after-procedure can be taken care of easily and less costly.
You may be thinking about how to transfer property from yourself to a company that you formed under your home country’s law so that the inheritance procedure can be handled by your home country’s legal system, which may be more reassuring.
You may wish to consider having the property owned by a Japanese limited liability company, under which only one property and associated business are owned, so that you may simply sell the shares of the company in order to transfer the property, associated business, license and tenants etc. as a whole.

We understand that there are many offers in English emphasising the attractiveness of forming a company in Japan; however, their after-care from a compliance perspective falls short. This is because incorporation is more a systematic procedure that uses a fixed format, thus making it easier to provide this type of service, compared to that of maintenance services which need more flexibility when it comes to knowhow and English.