Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Renters Unite

Hey all you Tokyo renters, good news! Renters are finally fed up with the ridiculous and for the most part unreasonable damage that landlords have been charging when tenants move out (ex. house cleaning, replacement of wallpaper, carpet, light fixtures, etc) . The Tokyo Municipal government put together a rule book governing what expenses the landlords are responsible for.

Since I just saw it on the news, I wasn't able to find anything except for this little blurb on the internet. To put everything in a nutshell, repair of daily wear and tear, such as marks on wallpaper made by a clock or uneven color on carpet due to placement of furniture, are to be paid by the landlord. Based on the new rule, tenants were able to take landlords to court and waive most of the so-called damage.

I am going to get myself a copy of the rule book and learn my rights. When we moved out of our previous house, our landlord charged us almost $1200 for housecleaning even after my cleaning lady and I labored for 8 hours on the house. I won't let it happen again.

Renter's market, here we come!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Oops, too bad for you, but then again, who's ever heard of tenants bearing the burden of carpet replacement? Only in Japan!