FIL rents some space to a business. He put rent up last lease renewal, 3 years ago, and tried to again this month.
Tenant pushed back and said no, then he reached out to his property manager who said “tenant and landlord can sort it out”. Great.
He then consulted a lawyer who advised that a landlord can’t increase rent twice in a row. This sounds slightly strange to me. Based on what I’ve seen he’s well below market rate.
I’ve read the rules around rent increases and found statements as below. Can someone confirm if this applies to commercial property as well? Everything I’ve found pertains to residential.
“In Japan, traditionally rent is not raised every year and there are there are only 4 statutorily recognized situations where rent may be adjusted. The Act on Land and Building Leases lists the 4 situations: 1) property taxes have increased or decreased, 2) property values have increased or decreased, 3) some other change in the economic situation, & 4) the rent is inappropriate compared with other properties in the area.“
2 comments
You really think someone here would know the intricacies of commercial space leasing?
Your (presumably japanese) father in law needs to chat with a lawyer in Japanese, not reddit.
That said, I’d hate to be on the receiving end of this deal, I’m currently paying 12万 a year for my office and would be pretty sad if one day the landlord decided they were charging me “below market rates” and decide to fuck me over lol.
I’m no lawyer but in my own experience with commercial renewals those conditions were given as examples of how to justify increases.
Assuming this is NOT a fixed term lease then rent increases must be mutually agreed. There is a path for arbitration if agreement can not be reached but the onus the party pushing for an increase or decrease to have the evidence.
Oh. My landlord absolutely pushes for an increase at each renewal. We use an expensive third party to represent us. So if that was illegal we’d know.