Hi Reddit,
Earlier this year I had found an apartment I really liked and ended up signing a 2 ywAr contract to rent. Before signing, my wife had asked the agent many questions about the place if there were previous issues or reasons why other people didn’t take/find the place. At the time nothing came up and we happily signed.
3 days later, we found out that starting in February, they were going to do a major renovation for the apartment building until end of July…. Of course this was a big shock to us as we were never told about this.
Since that time, we have been unable to use the balcony, have had to stay home while they update different things about the building, and also deal with the construction noise (my wife and I work from home), which has different than our expectations when we signed. My wife thinks that the rent we pay for the months that this renovation is going on should be lower given the fact we were not expecting this when we signed.
Is there anything we can do? I am still unsure if there is any legal aspect or things we can mention to negotiate, but very open to any ideas.
4 comments
I’d assume the contract to contain some info about potential renovation?
It happens a lot sadly. Chances of getting something from it? Zero.
Be happy it’s only a 3 month renovation and not a brand new construction a few feet from your building.
(Edit: construction taking place within your building and construction taking place near your building require different levels of due diligence).
Near your building:
Most landlords wish to avoid conflict as much as possible and would write a warning about immanent nearby construction into the contract IF they knew about it.
The problem is that construction is very common in Japanese cities, especially the popular parts of Tokyo. Once the project you mention in your post is completed you can expect another project to start somewhere in your neighborhood, and the landlord probably has no idea about that one either. If rents were lowered every time a construction project started, the rental market would be in chaos.
Two houses next to mine were torn down and completely rebuilt during the first year I moved here, and now a third building has scaffolding set up around it. Japanese buyers and renters strongly prefer new properties, and in the 23 wards of Tokyo they cannot build fast enough to meet the need.
They are under no obligation to notify you.