Glossary · 用語
A property sheet assumes you know what 3LDK counts, why a house from 1980 is priced differently from one built in 1982, and that a field in the garden is a second transaction. These are the 29 terms that come up most, each with what it is and what it means for someone buying. The listing sheets link here where a term applies.
Rooms are counted rather than measured, and the units are not metric.
Three rooms plus a living–dining–kitchen, with a service room (S) that cannot legally be counted as a bedroom.
The number counts the rooms beyond the shared space; the letters name that space — L living, D dining, K kitchen. A 3LDK is three rooms plus one living–dining–kitchen. 1K is one room with the kitchen behind a door; 1R is a single room with the kitchen in it.
For a buyerRooms are counted, not sized. A 6DK farmhouse may be six small tatami rooms off a corridor, and a 2LDK flat may have the larger floor area.
A room that fails the Building Standards Act’s daylight rule for a habitable room (居室) — in practice a window smaller than a seventh of the floor — so it is written as S or 納戸 instead of being counted.
For a buyerOften a perfectly usable bedroom that cannot legally be called one. Count it when you judge the house, not when you compare listings.
The traditional unit of land area: 3.306 m², the footprint of two tatami mats. Land is still priced per tsubo in much of the market, and building costs are quoted the same way.
For a buyerWe show every area in m². Divide by 3.3 to talk to an agent; multiply a per-tsubo price by 0.3 for the per-m² figure.
Room sizes are given in mats. One mat is roughly 1.5–1.8 m² depending on the regional standard (Kyoto’s 京間 is the largest, the post-war 団地間 the smallest), so a 6帖 room is about 10 m².
For a buyerThe mat is a floor module: 6帖 and 8帖 rooms recur because the house was built to the grid, and a wall rarely moves cheaply.
Most of what a year built tells you is which rules the house was permitted under.
When the building was completed, written in the era calendar: 昭和54年 is 1979, 平成元年 is 1989, 令和2年 is 2020. Sheets give the month too, which we do not hold; some give the permit date instead, which is the one the seismic standards attach to.
For a buyerAfter the price, the year is the most consequential fact on the sheet, because it fixes which building rules the house was permitted under — 1981 and 2000 are the lines that matter. Our sheet prints the era year beside the Western one so you can check it against the source; where the two disagree, the source is the record.
The revision of the Building Standards Act in force from 1 June 1981, after the 1978 Miyagi earthquake. A building permitted under it must not collapse in a shindo 6-upper to 7 earthquake; the older rule only asked it to survive shindo 5. It attaches to the permit date (建築確認), not to completion.
For a buyerPre-1981 buildings pay more for earthquake insurance, need a 耐震基準適合証明書 to qualify for the mortgage tax deduction, and are harder to finance and to resell. A 1981 build can sit on either side of the line — only the permit tells you which.
The June 2000 revision that tightened the rules for timber houses: a ground survey before the foundation is specified, bracing walls balanced across the plan, and metal connectors specified at the joints rather than left to the carpenter.
For a buyerA wooden house from 1981–2000 meets the 1981 standard but not this one. After the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes, houses from that window collapsed far more often than post-2000 ones — which is why our letter asks for the seismic record on anything built before 2000.
An engineer’s assessment of how the structure would perform, scored as an index (Iw for wooden houses) where 1.0 or above is the pass. Many municipalities subsidise it for pre-1981 houses, and subsidise the reinforcement (耐震改修) that follows.
For a buyerIt turns “old” into a number and a costed list of work. Ask whether one has been done; if not, price the diagnosis into the offer.
The 確認済証 records that the plans were checked against the Building Standards Act before construction; the 検査済証 records that the finished building was inspected and passed. Together they are the paper trail of a legal house.
For a buyerThe permit dates the seismic standard. Without a 検査済証, banks can refuse to lend and later renovation permits are harder — and a great many rural houses have neither. Ask; the municipality may hold a record (台帳記載事項証明書) if the owner does not.
A building that was legal when built but no longer meets current rules — a road that was later widened, a coverage limit tightened, a use that the zoning no longer allows. It is legal to keep and live in, unlike a 違反建築物 (illegal building).
For a buyerYou may keep it as it is. Rebuild or extend substantially and the whole building has to meet today’s rules, which can mean a smaller house than the one you bought.
A building, or an extension, that was never recorded in the property register (登記簿). Common in the countryside, where a barn or a wing was added without paperwork and the tax office noticed but the registry did not.
For a buyerAn unregistered building cannot be mortgaged and the transfer is harder to prove. Registering it (表題登記) is possible but costs a surveyor’s fee; since April 2024 inheritance registration is compulsory, so many sellers are only now finding out.
The reasons a plot is cheap are usually written on the land, not the house.
Article 43 of the Building Standards Act: a site in an urban planning area must touch a road as defined by the Act — generally 4 m or wider — for at least 2 m. Many old lanes are narrower, and a house reached only by a path or across a neighbour’s land does not qualify.
For a buyerFail it and the land is 再建築不可. This is the single question that most often explains a low price, and it is the first one in our letter.
Land on which a new building cannot be permitted, almost always because it fails the road-frontage requirement. The existing house may be repaired and, within limits, renovated; it cannot be replaced after a fire or a demolition.
For a buyerCheap for a reason. Most banks will not lend against it, insurance can be harder, and the pool of future buyers is small. Fine for someone who wants this house and will pay cash — a trap for someone who imagines rebuilding.
Zoning intended to keep land rural: new development is restricted and building needs a development permit (開発許可) that is often refused. An existing house may be lived in as it is.
For a buyerA large share of cheap rural houses sit here. Rebuilding, extending, or changing the use — a home into a guesthouse — needs permission that may not be given to a newcomer. Ask the municipality’s planning desk before you plan anything.
Land registered as paddy (田) or field (畑). Under the Farmland Act it can only be acquired by someone the local agricultural committee (農業委員会) approves as a farmer, and converting it to another use needs its own permission. The old minimum-area rule was abolished in 2023, which has made approval easier in many towns.
For a buyerA house with a field attached is two transactions, and the second may not be open to you. The house and its garden usually sit on 宅地 and transfer normally; the field may have to be left with the seller or leased instead.
The listing is priced as land. The building is treated as worth nothing, comes as it stands, and demolition — if you want it — is the buyer’s cost.
For a buyerSometimes the house is sound and the label is just the seller declining any liability for it. Sometimes it is exactly what it says. The condition line and a viewing tell you which.
The road in front is privately owned. Either a share of it comes with the land, or it belongs to neighbours whose consent you need to pass and to dig for water and sewer connections.
For a buyerAsk for the 通行掘削承諾書 — the written consent to pass and excavate. Without it a burst pipe becomes a negotiation.
The building is for sale but the land beneath it is rented from a landowner. Ground rent continues, the transfer usually carries a fee to the landlord (名義書換料), and rebuilding needs their consent.
For a buyerThe price looks low because you are not buying the land. Read the lease term and what happens at renewal before comparing it with freehold (所有権).
A municipal notice board is not an estate agent, and it works differently.
A municipal notice board of vacant homes whose owners agreed to list them. The town is not an estate agent: it introduces the parties, and either they deal directly or a designated local agent handles the contract.
For a buyerConditions often attach — living there, an age limit, a promise to renovate, sometimes registering as a resident within a set time. The enquiry usually goes through the town office, which is why our letter is addressed to the publisher and asks about conditions first.
The subsidies many towns attach to their akiya bank: grants towards renovation, moving costs, or child-rearing for people who move in and register as residents (住民票).
For a buyerOften worth more than the house. Almost always conditional on residency and sometimes on age or family, and paid after the work, not before — so budget for the gap.
Under the 2015 vacant-house law a municipality may designate a house that risks collapse, is insanitary, or blights its surroundings. The owner loses the residential land tax relief and can be ordered to repair or demolish it, at their expense. A milder 管理不全空家 category was added in 2023.
For a buyerA bargain that has been designated comes with the order attached. Ask the town whether any notice has been served on the property.
What is promised, what is excluded, and who is paid.
The property transfers in its present state: the defects, and usually the contents. It is nearly always paired with an exclusion of the seller’s liability for non-conformity.
For a buyerWhat you see at the viewing is what you get, including what is in the cupboards. Clearing a full house of 残置物 is metered by volume and commonly runs to several hundred thousand yen.
Whatever stays in the house at handover — furniture, tools, a lifetime’s effects, sometimes a car. In an as-is sale they become the buyer’s to dispose of.
For a buyerAsk who clears it, and whether the price moves if you do. Disposal in Japan is sorted and charged; a licensed hauler (一般廃棄物収集運搬業) is required for household waste.
The seller’s liability when the property differs from what the contract describes — a leaking roof, termites, a boundary in the wrong place. It replaced 瑕疵担保責任 (latent-defect liability) in the 2020 civil-code reform. Private sellers routinely exclude it (免責).
For a buyerWith the exclusion, a defect found after handover is yours. Ask for the exclusion’s wording and, on anything old, pay for an inspection (インスペクション) before you sign rather than a lawyer after.
Before a brokered contract, a licensed 宅地建物取引士 must explain the legal facts in writing: zoning, road status, utilities, registered rights, and since 2020 the flood hazard map. It is the closest thing to a survey most Japanese sales get.
For a buyerA direct akiya-bank sale has no agent and so no 重説. The questions in our letter — road, utilities, registration, conditions — are the ones it would have answered.
The agent’s commission, capped by law at 3% of the price plus ¥60,000, plus consumption tax, above ¥4 million. Since July 2024 an agent may instead charge up to ¥300,000 plus tax on a property of ¥8 million or less, from each side.
For a buyerOn a very cheap house the fee can approach the price: a ¥500,000 house may carry a ¥330,000 fee. That is the cost of having a 重説 and someone to answer for it.
Every one of them is a percentage of a figure only the municipality holds.
The yearly property tax: 1.4% of the assessed value (固定資産税評価額), plus up to 0.3% city planning tax in urban areas. Land under a dwelling is assessed at a sixth on the first 200 m² — relief a 特定空家 designation removes.
For a buyerThe assessed value is set by the municipality and is usually well below the asking price. Ask the seller for the latest 課税明細書; it tells you the real yearly cost in one line.
A one-off prefectural tax on acquiring property: 3% of the assessed value for land and dwellings under the reduced rate that has been extended repeatedly (currently to March 2027), 4% otherwise. Older houses qualify for deductions only if they meet the seismic standard.
For a buyerIt arrives by post some months after the purchase, when the budget has been spent. Our cost-to-own working includes it.
Paid when the transfer of title is registered: a percentage of the assessed value, with reduced rates for land and for dwellings that meet conditions, plus the fee of the 司法書士 who files it.
For a buyerRegistration is not automatic and not optional in practice — an unregistered transfer cannot be defended against a later claim. Budget the tax and the filing fee together.
Found a term we should add? Write to support@sumikoto.com. Every listing sheet picks the entries that apply to it under its facts.