I bought an apartment a few years ago and one of the building rules is no pets allowed. Hypothetically, if I was to get a pet, what could the property management company actually do? Has anyone been in this situation?
This is a purely hypothetical question. I’m not going to be a dick without talking to my neighbors.
3 comments
I don’t think you can bent that rule due to you knowing about it in the first place.
I’ll agree on the stance that you own it and should be able to do anything within the realm of legal according to the laws of Japan, in your own residents.
You probably could get a fish, rat, mouse, hamster or something and argue it’s a gray zone. But that’s still kinda risky.
In most cases, the “rules” are not by the property management company, but defined by the Homeowners Association (管理組合) that all owners in the building are a part of, and the apartment’s bylaws (規約) that defines the rights and duties of all co-owners of the building.
Some of these bylaws are mandatory, and some may be changed by voting at the annual HoA meeting.
Have a look at those bylaws. It is possible that “penalties” for not upholding the rules could be defined there… I’m not sure what recourse they could have if there aren’t any – you might like to check in with a lawyer or perhaps a knowledgeable real estate agent. That said it is also entirely possible for them to propose and vote to add one in the next year (if the residents are sufficiently inconvenienced/bothered).
Sometime back, there was a post about an apartment that increased their parking fee for motorcycles by 10-fold or something like that (from 2,000/month to 20,000/month), with the justification that it uses a similar amount of space as a car (and not a bicycle that the original rate was based on). There were only 2 motorcycles in that entire condo, but it seems the noise issue by one of the motorcycle owners (who moved in somewhat recently?) annoyed enough residents to propose, and vote on a rule change to indirectly force the motorcycles out.
Perhaps, one possible route would be to see if you can propose to amend the bylaws of your apartment to allow pets. You need 50% of the owners (and co-owners with ownership of more than 50% of their exclusive area) to agree for it to be accepted.
As an owner you become a member of the owners association. The owners can vote to change the rules for the building, so maybe you could lobby for a vote to change the rules to allow pets. On the other hand, in a worst-case scenario, the owners could vote to force a sale of your apartment in order to get rid of you if you’re violating the rules.