Need an apartment in Japan? NEVER USE UR

[dlombard]

At some point, I am going to write a more comprehensive blog post about what I did and how I did this as far as moving to Japan is concerned.  Basically everything is going according to plan except for one area, which is acquiring an apartment.  This cannot be described as anything other than an unmitigated nightmare.

It all started when rather than moving to Osaka, where I had a plan for this, I found myself having to work in Tokyo despite what I had in mind, which meant that after years of planning this move, I've had to make numerous, last-minute changes to a very complex plan all because these people made all kinds of promises and assurances as to how smoothly this would all go.

In Japan, you basically go through a realtor to get an apartment (similar to how it works in New York City).  In a lot of ways, this makes things a lot easier because even as a native speaker who's been living in their own country for decades, directly making an application for an apartment in the US has never been a fun experience.  Given how many more issues there are and al of the potential unknown pitfalls to consider, doing this in Japan without a local helping didn't seem like a good idea at all.



I came across a real estate company called Smart Relocate, which was fortuitous because they specialize in overseas moves by English speakers, of which there are many thanks to the JET program, where people come to Japan to teach English.  Things tend to operate with machine like precision here in Japan so I was hoping to follow the system as it has been established for All Americans coming to Japan.  The first thing I realized when making plans is that ultimately everything depends on two factors: how much can get done on the weekend and where a bed is already there.

These two factors changed the earlier version of my plans where I was going to take a towncar straight to the airport the day all my bed got taken to the dump.  I would pay as much money as it would take to already have the apartment in my name such that all I'd have to do is catch a cab to the office where I could pick up my keys.  But that place won't have a bed, and it takes time to get things like that delivered.  Thus, the first hotel reservation on the plan, a stay at the Toyoko INN in Haneda.

Then I came across other challenges in trying to travel directly to LAX from my old apartment, and decided to add a hotel stay near LAX to deal with that.   After working on the schedule for a while to try and make everything fit, I settled on the following:

1. Yamato America would pack, load, truck, store and ship everything the day before my last day at work
2. Have the sold car picked up on the same day and then go get my rental
3. Return all work equipment the next day
4. Meet the lugg.com crew to haul out everything else for bulky item pickup by the city sanitation department on the last Sunday of the month
5. Return the rental, shuttle to the airport, transfer to the hotel shuttle
6. Check into the hotel, take care of business
7. Tuesday, fly out
8. Wednesday evening, check into the hotel room in Japan
9. Pick up the keys to the new apartment after stamping all the contracts
10. Meet the furniture rental team at the new apartment to take delivery of appliances and furniture
11. Carry out a recon run to my new office the day before I start my new job

Step 11 would have been October 31st.  Here's how things actually are going...

In Japan, there are two unusual issues to contend with when it comes to becoming a resident.  The first is you have to register where you live with the government; every you move, you have to go to the office for your neighborhood and submit a move-out registration.  After moving, you have fourteen days to go to the office for your new neighborhood, and submit a move-in registration.  Once you register your address, you can obtain a residence certificate, which is needed for things like registering an inkan (stamp).

The second unusual issue goes back to the ease with which an apartment can be acquired.  In Japan, there is an unusual paradigm where many things require a "guarantor" which is, in short, a person or organization that has agreed to take responsibility (ordinarily financially) in the event something goes wrong because of you.  This shows up in expected places like in one's quest to become a permanent residence, but also in unexpected places: such as a condition of employment at a Japanese company.

For apartments, this usually takes the form of a guarantor fee; this way, the landlord gets paid even if something happens where the tenant cannot pay their rent.  Guarantor fees, however, are actually just one of many fees added onto rents that are, as advertised, conspicuously inexpensive.  There are lease renewals fees, something called "key money, and  more; and that's before you get to the parking space fee, should you choose to park a car.

This is what can be expected if you get an apartment from a company like SUUMO, for example.  However, there is another company called UR that is quite popular because they are known for not requiring key money, lease renewal or guarantor fees.  It seems UR can do this because they are what they would call in the United States a "GSE," or Government Sponsored Enterprise like SallyMae.

But there is a catch (of course).

What is the catch?  The paperwork process at UR is a right fucking pain in the ass.

Rumor had it that at one point what I would do is is pre-pay my rent for a year due to not already living in Japan and, as a result, not able to complete certain processes.  That would have been fine because that was already my plan all along--even when I was planning to move to Osaka as a student.  But now, it's not so simple.  Now, the only way to acquire a UR apartment is to complete a long process of submitting various certificates.

In my case, I was asked to provide:

• A certificate of income (in "UR" format to be stamped and mailed to the realtor)
• A certificate of employment (in my case, they accepted my offer letter / employment contract)
• Copy of my American passport photo page
• Copy of my Japan visa on the visa pages of my passport
• Copy of my residence CARD (not to be confused for a residence CERTIFICATE)
• Residence Certificate
• Emergency Contact

By themselves, just obtaining and providing this documentation is not a particularly burdensome obligation.  My new employer produced and mailed the income certificate weeks in advance, and I was able to provide everything else except for the Residence certificate because that you can't get until you go to a municipal office, and register your address.  The biggest problem is that UR had changed their rules (apparently just days before I started trying to do all this) all of a sudden requiring new, strange deadlines.

The UR process for acquiring an apartment is initially making an application, and then you make a contract.  You are required to begin the contract process ten days after making the reservation, and then you are required to complete the contract ten days after that.  This means that you have to go from having absolutely ZERO idea where you are going to live and whether you'll even like the place to having completed the entire process of paying for a new apartment all within twenty days.  Once you do, you have to wait until after seven days have passed since completing the contract to get the keys to your apartment.

One of the things to make this process a massive hassle is the fact that not even the real estate agent fully understood the process.  It took multiple phone calls to UR to establish the information I have written here as the correct process.  Every other day for several months, I had WhatsApp chats with the realtor that basically went something like this: "You can do X, and Y and Z."  "Ok, let's do that."  "Well, if you do, then you cannot do A, B and C."  "OK, so then what should we do?"  "Let me get back to you."  ...  "OK, you can do D, E and F."  "Let's do that then."  "OK, I'll take care of it and let you know."  ... "Actually, I just spoke with the office, and we can't do that.  I'm sorry for the confusion.  What we can do is G, H, and I.  That way, we can complete the process."  "OK, let's do that then."  Conversations like that went on for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Unrelated to this problem was a separate debacle involving my recruiting agency thoroughly screwing up the process of getting me my new job.  Thanks to them, my start date was two months too early despite repeatedly communicating to all parties from the beginning that starting any earlier than the date I said would not be possible.  Though I was ultimately able to fix the recruiting company's failure through directly engaging with the HR department at my new employer, this caused a second consequence.

The process of obtaining a Japan residence visa for work or as a student begins with being issued a Certificate of Eligibility.  This CoE is valid for just three months, inside of this time, you must apply for and obtain your visa.  This looks like mailing your real, actual passport book with more than five years of validity left on it with your application and then getting it back about a week later with one of the passport book's visa pages pages entirely covered with a Japan Visa.  If you have travel to Japan coming up, wait until you return to allow the process of obtaining the CoE to begin because you cannot have two visas simultaneously, and the visitor visa would interfere with being able to get a residence visa.

After five years of research and consulting with multiple parties including the official website of the Government of Japan (the English language pages), the following information was Never provided to me: In addition to having just three months to obtain your Visa, you MUST physically enter Japan at one of the seven major ports (e.g., Narita, Haneda, Kansai International, etc.) to obtain a Landing Permission stamp in your passport.  In order to get this landing permission, your Certificate of Eligibility must also be presented in addition to your visa, and during the three months that the certificate is valid.

For me, this was a major problem because I was not scheduled to enter Japan until 12 days After the date that my Certificate expires.  How could this have happened?  Because the recruiters failed to ensure that my employment start date would be correct from the beginning, I was issued a Certificate of Eligibility for a Japan Visa two months too soon.  Due to this, I was left with no other choice but to travel to Japan for a second time, and then return as soon as possible to finish relocation preparation in the United States.

This colossal blunder was about to turn into a good thing because of the situation with UR.  Due to the massive problems with being required to complete the application and contract paperwork in person on this oddly specific schedule, the only way it would have been possible to complete the process is if I were to give my realtor Power of Attorney.  To do that, I would need to register an address, and then register my seal so that I could stamp the document that would grant the realtor Power of Attorney.  This would have given her the ability to get all the certificates, complete all of the contracts, and pickup the key on my behalf.

In the mountain of paperwork I have submitted, I had given the address of the hotel where I am staying as the address of where I am staying, because that is the address of where I am staying.  I was informed I could not register that address, and was asked to "use something else."  At first, I didn't know what to do.  However, there was someone in Tokyo who owed me a favor and so I got their permission to register at their address.  I told everyone that I was going to the municipal office of the ward of the hotel where I was going to stay for 1 day before immediately flying back to the United States to register that address, and then complete the Power of Attorney and other paperwork.

Unfortunately, after I arrived at the municipal office on a Friday, I was told that because the address I am trying to register is in a different ward, I would have to go to the municipal office for that ward.  Due to traffic and the sheer distance, I was not able to arrive at the office before it closed despite spending nearly $100 on the taxicab fare to get there.  It's possible I could have been in time but it took an hour for Mobal to activate the SIM card that was supposed to work the moment it was installed like the previous SIM card did.  This prevented me from being able to call for assistance to get a cab and information.

While traveling to the hotel and after checking in, I was able to confirm that the correct municipal office would not be open again until Tuesday as Monday was a holiday.  The Saturday window would have been able to do it, except for foreigners, they can't because they have to call the national immigration bureau to validate the status of my visa, which can only be done weekdays.

The realtor tried to negotiate with UR to waive the residence certificate requirement, but her request was declined.  I tried to find a new flight back to the US to possibly stay until Tuesday night in order to get this completed while still in Japan, but the airline customer service representative confirmed there was no seat availability for days.  So now I have no choice but to add an additional hotel stay; one that will last seven days so that I have somewhere I can stay while onboarding at my new job until the apartment keys can be acquired, and, furniture such as a bed can be delivered that weekend.

Ultimately, it would have been better to go through a company like SUUMO to get this done despite the astronomical fees, because unless you are moving from another place inside of Japan, UR's process is impossible to successfully complete.  The other major problem is that it has not be possible to get complete, accurate and timely information about extremely important details at every step of the process.  It is my hope to be able to provide this information online somewhere such that anyone else trying to do this knows what to expect and is clear on the fact that no matter how much UR might come recommended for whatever reason, NEVER attempt to get a UR apartment unless you already live in Japan.