I’m about to pay and sign the final paperwork on a house purchase in a neighbouring city next week. We are currently living in rental accommodation and intend to move permanently as soon as the new house has had some work done on it – maybe in 2 or 3 months’ time. Our estate agent is going nuts making sure everything is ready (I don’t think she’s every had a foreign cash buyer before) and has got my wife (Japanese) confused over the timing of the address change. She seems to think we should change our address before we sign the contract which to me sounds ridiculous. She thinks that when buying the house it may be considered a “2nd/investment property” and invite a higher tax charge. In my head we should just go in, buy our 1st and only property which we intend to live in, do the reform work and then move at a later date going to the kuyakusho and doing all the paperwork there and at our new city at the time. I know this is Japan and it’s bound to be over-complicated but am I mad? Or is she?
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This is common procedure. Else the home owner’s address on the paperwork will be your current address and (I think) you’ll have to update that later.
I changed my address before the final purchase.
> She seems to think we should change our address before we sign the contract which to me sounds ridiculous.
Why ridiculous? The people you’re dealing with have the professional knowledge to make that judgment, unlike you evidently. The reason you’re given is perfectly sensible from a taxation perspective, and yet you’re all “that’s ridiculous” without anything to back it up with. I bet you don’t even have the Japanese language skills to do a relevant Google search on your own. Honestly, if there’s some reputation of foreigners being a PITA to deal with in cases like this, it’s people like you that are (partly) to blame.
> I know this is Japan and it’s bound to be over-complicated but am I mad? Or is she?
You’re the one over-complicating things.
This is normal. I went and did our moving paperwork at city hall a couple of days before we signed all the final purchase paperwork. It seems to be quite commonplace in Japan, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Same procedure for us when we bought our house. We were confused too. But yeah, I guess that’s a common practice.
Go ask the local government office
I was required to change my juminhyo to the address of the house I was purchasing as part of finalizing the contract and scrivener’s work.
Keep in mind that mail won’t be sent there until you file a change of address form with the post office, save for anything your new city hall sends you.
You can change your resident card address at the new city hall up to 14 days after transferring your juminhyo, but since you won’t move in for a few months, you will end up doing that as well before moving there.
If your only concern is mail, I wouldn’t worry about it. If you’re -super- worried (and not on a spouse visa), have your wife move her juminhyo over so that at least one person is registered at that address at the time of signing.
My wife and I bought a house in Yokosuka last December and this was the same thing we had to do. It’s normal.