It was quite easy when my wife added my name to the lease, she asked first if it was alright for me to live there, which the company said it was, so then she just sent a copy of my passport (I wasn’t a resident of Japan at the time) and had to sign a paper.
Unless the rental is specifically for a single individual, like it’s a sub-20m^2 1K with a shared bathroom, it’s usually not much of an issue. Just a meeting with a bunch of stamping/signing.
It is at the discretion of the owner or landlord whether to allow additional people to live in a rental. One rule of thumb is that the number before the term 1LDK, 3DK, 4K etc. refers not only to the number of rooms that could be made into bedrooms, but also to the number of people that can be expected to live there, give or take. A 2LDK is ideal for a married couple, or a couple with one kid. Most owners would not oppose adding a spouse to a contract for something that large.
However, if the property is a 1LDK or smaller and you plan to join a lease at a later date, you should check when applying whether it is also 二人入居可 meaning that two people are allowed to live there. That is what the agency is checking now.
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It was quite easy when my wife added my name to the lease, she asked first if it was alright for me to live there, which the company said it was, so then she just sent a copy of my passport (I wasn’t a resident of Japan at the time) and had to sign a paper.
Unless the rental is specifically for a single individual, like it’s a sub-20m^2 1K with a shared bathroom, it’s usually not much of an issue. Just a meeting with a bunch of stamping/signing.
It is at the discretion of the owner or landlord whether to allow additional people to live in a rental. One rule of thumb is that the number before the term 1LDK, 3DK, 4K etc. refers not only to the number of rooms that could be made into bedrooms, but also to the number of people that can be expected to live there, give or take. A 2LDK is ideal for a married couple, or a couple with one kid. Most owners would not oppose adding a spouse to a contract for something that large.
However, if the property is a 1LDK or smaller and you plan to join a lease at a later date, you should check when applying whether it is also 二人入居可 meaning that two people are allowed to live there. That is what the agency is checking now.