TDLR: This post is about advice regarding a dispute between tenants and a real-estate agency, where wrong information was given during viewing and this information was not amended during signing of the contract, leading to it only being discovered after the fact.
We’re trying to figure out our next course of action.
(And yes, I know, don’t take legal advice from reddit.)
So, I and a friend recently moved to a new apartment in Tokyo.
Being foreigners, we decided to contact a relatively well known real estate company to help us navigate the process.
An apartment was suggested, and we scheduled a viewing.
(It bears mentioning that, while this is a very public and relatively well known company, the agent we were mainly dealing with was a new hire and we were his first clients.)
During set viewing, I noticed several wall ports which looked to be ethernet ports. Commenting on this, I was told by the real-estate agent these were in fact ethernet ports, and that getting internet in this apartment would both be free, and as easy as just plugging in our own router.
With there being multiple of these ports in the apartment, mention was also made that this was an advantage of this apartment as we could use the ports in one room to set up a living room router, but use another in a different room to wire up computers for WFH.
The real-estate agent agreed to this and pointed out this would indeed be an advantage.
This, ended up being one of the main reasons we decided this apartment suited our wishes. The offhand mention was made by the realtor during the signing that we’d been one of their easiest clients yet.
During the signing, the included utilities came up, and we were told that “the apartment has X amount of internet access ports, where internet will be delivered”.
So, now the problem.
This all isn’t true.
Upon trying to connect my laptop to judge the speed of the wall outlet in order to buy a router, I was surprised to find it an optic fiber output (NTT FLET’S Hikari, to be precise. And to be clear, this is a downwards facing port, so it’s not exactly easy to see it wasn’t an ethernet jack). Upon contacting NTT, we were informed that not only would there be one time fees for the setup, but also that internet in this apartment was not in-fact free, but that we had to pay for it.
Now, normally, this would be fine. I have no problem paying for a service I’m using. The problem here is, not only that we were not informed of at any point in the process (in-fact, we were told the opposite), but it has also turned out that only one of the fiber ports will actually be connected. This means that one of the major factors that lead us to choose this property, is now invalid. Having wired internet ports in multiple rooms.
Besides that’ we’ll be incurring around ¥100000 for the internet service over the 2 year contract period, as well as having to find a way to get internet to the other rooms (which I know how to do, but still costs time and money).
After contacting them, the real-estate company says they understand why we might be upset, but that this (not having internet included) is the normal way things are in Japan.
That’s all fine and good, it’s the same in Europe, but that’s not what we’re told.
Furthermore, they stated that during the contract signing, it was stated that “internet would be delivered to the apartment” and that according to them, this would obviously be understood as what it was meant to be.
However, in my opinion, having been previously told that not only I could simply plug in a router to get internet, but also that it would be free, this didn’t read to me as “it isn’t free, you can’t simply plug in a router, and will have to get a separate contract to get internet”
Their initial offer of compensation were the internet connections costs. Around ¥8000, according to them (a different figure than I got from NTT, but alright).
We told them this wasn’t good enough, and after some back and forth, they upped the offer to ¥20000, with the clear statement that this was as much as they were willing to do, and that while they thought it unfortunate, “signing the contract meant I should’ve understood what the situation was.”
I argue that, both the fact that I’m not a realtor, and that while I speak a serviceable level of Japanese, a legal contract contains relatively uncommon words/kanji, and was told contradicting information means that the statement “internet will be delivered” didn’t read in the way it perhaps was intended.
And this is a situation where you pur your trust in the realtor to properly explain to you the situation.
Lastly, while of course a little over ¥200000 over 2 years won’t kill me, this apartment was already slightly over our budget. So the added costs definitely hurt a bit. I’ll also be incurring costs for either setting up a power-line ethernet connection if the wiring is suitable, or running and hiding a cable through the entire apartment. Neither is free, and especially the latter will take me quite some time too, as well as be an eyesore no matter how well I try to hide the cable.
In conclusion, we think this isn’t fair compensation for the extra costs we’ll be enduring.
That being said, I don’t know what rights we do actually have in this situation.
Are we in our right to expect greater compensation, and would there be a way to achieve this, or should we take the offer given and be happy at that?
10 comments
Not excusing the realtor but you probably should get paid internet in the long run if you want to stream video and WFH. Every place I have been that offered free internet was capped to 10/1 Mbps down/up, cannot game or use many apps due to ports blocked or extremely laggy due to some other guy in the building nonstop torrenting pr0n.
*was being read a contract is rather difficult Japanese*
*signing the contract meant I should’ve understood what the situation was*
I am aware that my opinion does not match yours, but I think you are lucky to get 20k from them.
Are you happy with your place other than this issue? If so, then live and learn. I highly doubt the well known real estate company is purposefully misleading you – unless that is what they are well known for.
Congrats on your new place. Crack open a Strong Zero and continue living your best life!
My option might be contradicting to your thought as well. The realtor is pretty nice to be offering 20k for compensation. Usually if its hikari, its well understood that it will cost roughly 5k per month (some builders offer this for free).
And moreover, even if it was free, trust me the lag and disconnections will be a pain. You will ultimately have to get a separate internet connection like softbank air for 3k.
Having said that, if you are comfortable with the apartment and really like it go for it. A little extra (100k/24months) looks manageable.
The question I would ask is: had you known you’d need to subscribe to a Hikari internet service, would you have rented the apartment for the listed price? If you would have then I wouldn’t spend too much time litigating everything, it’s just an unnecessary stress.
I doubt you’ll get anything more from the company, and going down a track of conflict likely won’t result in any financial gain or make you any happier. You could use this as justification to void the contract but that will likely mean more $$ and time spent on finding somewhere else.
Isn’t the idea you plug the fibre into the modem/router then the router into the nearest CAT5 plug, and hey presto, all the other ports are available.
You really don’t have any discourse either, all your stuff is moved in and your already living there. Even if you keep asking in the end the management company can say we will void your lease you have a week to move out, here is your money back.
The only thing that can help you is, when you sign the lease they do a inventory of all the “features” of the apartment. Anything from aircons, IH grills, hot water heater, dishwasher should be listed. If internet is included in that list they have to provide it to you or it will be breaking the lease. Most of the time it isn’t but maybe worth checking.
Don’t let NTT charge you for setup. That 4-6万 is for construction of new fiber. You have the outlets therefore it’s already installed.
They trick people into that unnecessary service even though it’s already installed. All they need to do is check their system that the address shows service and then have the provider send a modem kit.
To form a legally binding contract, you need only 1 thing: an mutual agreement on the thing and the price.
The thing here refers to the apartment as well as everything that goes with it. They told you that the apartment had free internet, so this becomes a part of the thing you agreed on. Without free internet, there is no longer an agreement on the thing and the contract is considered void.
While it’s true that you signed a contract, they verbally told you about the free internet, which is as legally binding as the paper that you signed, the only problem is PROVING that they said it.
They already had a legally binding agreement before you signed the written contract but what they did was changing the terms to something different, which is illegal (probably banking on your lack of knowledge in Japanese to notice the trickery). Usually, real estate agents read the entire contract in front of you before you sign to make sure those are the terms you agreed to with during the visit, did they do that or did they just hand you the contract and told you to sign it?
If you can prove that they said the apartment came with free internet, you can get out of the contract at no cost or get them to pay for it to meet their contractual obligations. The fact that they are offering compensation is a good proof that they intentionally tried to deceive you.
There is a widespread misconceptions that only signed contracts are valid and that once you sign something, it overwrites anything that has been agreed on verbally but this is simply not true. People usually give up because verbal contracts are extremely hard to prove but what they did was fraud.
As often stated when such cases go to court “a contract party should not be allowed to reap the fruits of trickery” and “it is not realistic to expect that parties are in a position to scrutinize every page of a contract for signs of deceit”
You seriously thought you were going to get Internet for free?! WTF?
I’m amazed you got 20,000 yen out of it!
I think the realtors themselves did not understand what the apartment had in terms of actual connectivity. A lot of the times they confuse apartments being internet capable (which could mean just the fiber line for NTT or KDDI or some other provider being available in the unit) to the internet being free (an ethernet hand-off in the apartment or free wi-fi being available throughout the complex).
Having ethernet jacks available in all of the rooms is even more rare (unless your apartment was built fairly recently).
The question is, is it worth your time and effort fighting them on this. If you can afford it, and the ¥200000 over 2 years won’t kill you, I’d say pay it. Half of the time, the free internet some apartments offer is not even that great to begin with (especially at night). I was in an apartment with free internet and it was so slow I had to get my own line pulled in (after many arguments with the 管理組合).