Build a property-development risk register

A property-development risk register is a working document that forces every assumption about a Japanese site to be tested against a named record before you treat the scheme as viable. It is not a spreadsheet of generic risks like “market risk” or “construction risk.” It is a decision instrument: for each risk you record the evidence, the owner, the trigger that makes the risk active, the mitigation, and the specific judgement the risk could alter.

How Japanese property records actually work

Japanese property records are not a single national database. Ownership sits in the land register (登記簿) kept by the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) for the area where the land sits. Boundaries sit in a separate cadastral map (地図), maintained in the same bureau but not always consistent with the register text. Zoning and building rules come from the local government’s planning department (市町村都市計画課) and the national Building Standards Act (建築基準法). No unified private portal joins these records. Each parcel may require separate requests to the Legal Affairs Bureau, the municipal planning department, and the tax office.

For practical research, work with three official sources:

Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局), which holds the land register (登記簿) and cadastral maps (地図). These are the authoritative records of ownership, mortgages, easements, and parcel boundaries. You must identify the bureau that has jurisdiction over the parcel’s location.
Local government planning department (市町村都市計画課), which issues zoning certificates, building confirmation records, and urban planning maps.
e-Gov Japan (e-Gov), the official portal for statutes and ministerial ordinances, including the Building Standards Act and Urban Redevelopment Act.

What a risk register must contain

Use seven columns. Each row is one risk, not one document. A risk is only useful when it is tied to a judgement you will make.

Column	What goes in it	Example
Risk	The specific event or condition that could change the project	Registered lease term does not match actual renewal rights
Evidence	The record that proves or disproves it	登記簿 (land register) entry; lease contract; 借家 (tenancy) record
Owner	The person who must resolve or monitor it	Judicial scrivener, land and building surveyor, or the buyer’s counsel
Trigger	The observable event that forces action	Notice of demolition, mortgage registration, zoning change
Mitigation	The step that reduces the risk	Confirm renewal rights under the Land and Building Leases Act before signing
Decision it changes	The specific go/no-go or price point it affects	Whether to purchase, the bid price, or the project timeline

The register is a live document. Each line is one risk, one owner, one trigger. If a line has no owner or no trigger, it is not a risk; it is an unresolved question that must be moved to the project’s open-questions list before the scheme is treated as viable.

Core verification sequence

Open the land register (登記簿) at the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) for the parcel. Note the owner name, mortgage holders, and any easements. Then request the cadastral map (地図) for the same parcel and compare the registered area with the mapped area. A mismatch of more than 1-2% is a red flag that the parcel may have been subdivided without proper registration.

Next, obtain a 建築確認申請 (building confirmation application) record from the local government to see whether the current structure was built with approval and under which building code. Cross-check the building’s construction date against the 1981 seismic code revision. If the building was approved before June 1981, it may not meet current seismic standards and could require a structural survey before redevelopment is feasible.

Then pull the urban planning map (都市計画図) from the municipal planning department to confirm zoning, road reservations, and any redevelopment promotion area designations. Finally, review the fixed asset tax register (固定資産税台帳) for the municipality’s assessed value and building details, then compare that against a formal appraisal by a licensed real-estate appraiser (不動産鑑定士) when the figure materially affects a judgement.

Worked example

A 1985 apartment building in a 市街地再開発促進区域 (redevelopment promotion area) has three co-owners and two tenants. The land register shows a mortgage; the cadastral map shows the parcel boundary cutting through an existing structure. The building confirmation application is from 1985, predating the 1981 seismic code revision, so the structural calculation file may not meet current standards. The fixed-asset tax record lists a building area smaller than the cadastral parcel area, suggesting a possible unregistered extension.

The owner needs to confirm whether the road frontage is private or public before assuming the FAR can be used. The tenant has a registered lease that ends in 18 months; under the Land and Building Leases Act, renewal rights may still apply, so the owner cannot assume vacant possession at lease expiry. The co-owner structure shows two siblings and one silent partner; the silent partner’s share is sufficient to block a sale under the majority rule.

The risk register should list each of these items as a separate risk with a named owner, a trigger, and the judgement it could change.

Register format

The owner is the person or role who must act, not the person who reports the risk. A trigger is a concrete, observable event, not a vague possibility. The mitigation is a specific action with a named official source or licensed professional. The decision it could change is the single judgement the risk should influence, stated as “whether to…”.

Worked register entry

Risk: The registered road frontage is wider than the actual paved road, so the building plan may assume access that does not exist.
Evidence: Cadastral map (地図) at the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) vs site survey by a licensed land and building surveyor (土地家屋調査士).
Owner: The purchaser’s due-diligence lead.
Trigger: When the surveyor’s field measurement differs from the registry by more than 0.5 m.
Mitigation: Order a boundary survey before signing a purchase agreement; record the surveyor’s field notes and compare them with the cadastral map and the land register (登記簿) in the same Legal Affairs Bureau jurisdiction.
Decision it could change: Whether to proceed with purchase, renegotiate the price, or walk away.

Required records for a due-diligence file

A due-diligence file should contain a current land register (登記簿), cadastral map extract (地図), building confirmation application (建築確認申請), fixed-asset tax record (固定資産税台帳), and a planning certificate (都市計画証明書). These five records are held by different offices: the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) for the register and map, the municipal planning department for the certificate, and the municipal tax office for the fixed-asset record. Do not treat the seller’s brochure as a record. The property system is fragmented, and there is no single national portal for private use.

Key terms

不動産
登記
再開発
建替え