“THE LAW OF NUMBERS” – JAPANESE REI FINANCIAL & LEGAL ASPECTS ZIV MAGEN
Our choice had very little to do with price per hour,
revealed the “real hero” of the Japanese property
since the professional we finally picked was on the
transaction market – “The Judicial Scrivener”.
upper mid-range price-wise.
Our choice had a
These guys (and girls, although still a sad rarity in
whole lot to do with communication, attention and
the land of the rising sun) are something akin to a
trustworthiness. And while we still test the market
notary public or property lawyer. They are bound
regularly for alternative accounting solutions, we
by
have had no reason to stray from our first choice.
regulations, and are obliged to check, double-
strict
check
national
and
supervision
triple-check
all
and
aspects
licensing
of
the
A good professional adviser will, first and foremost,
transaction, confirm the property is debt free,
know to tell you when their services are NOT
money
required.
registration from buyer to seller - be it a company,
If
there
are
reporting
thresholds,
automated procedures and online shortcuts to
has
changed
hands,
then
transfer
an individual or any combination of such.
routine tasks, I expect to hear about these from my
service provider – and am happy to pay for the
It
hour or two it may take to explain those to me.
explanations to find the right people, then a few
took
a
few
calls,
emails
and
repeated
case-studies with small and simple property
Scrivener
transactions. But, we now have a team of several
young,
Slick, big city lawyers are normally English-
savvy,
multi-lingual
Japanese
judicial
scrivener offices we regularly work with.
speakers, wherever in the world one may stray.
But, a few quick calls and meetings with such,
coupled with some information gleamed from realestate websites and local government offices,
And, while in Japan the realtor’s office will often
“supply” their own in-house or third-party scrivener,
who is often heavily discounted as part of the “purchase package” by said party, these
older, more traditional scriveners have
often never dealt with foreigners in
their lives. And, they rarely speak a
word of English, particularly in the
more attractive areas of the country,
where the English-speaking investor
has yet to venture. In these cases,
differences in legal terms, documents
required and often simple fear of the
foreign, can postpone and delay
settlement and, as a result, the
commencement of yield.