In what experts termed a landmark ruling, the well-established practice of landlords collecting renewal fees in the housing rental industry was judged illegal Thursday and a violation of tenants’ rights.
The point of contention in the Kyoto District Court ruling Thursday was the “contract renewal fees” for renting houses and apartments, which tenants are obliged to pay their landlords every time their contracts are renewed.
In many cases, the fees are equal to two months’ rent and must be paid by lump sum, putting a heavy financial burden on tenants every few years, in addition to the “key money” that is required when a tenant first enters into a contract.
In the lawsuit, a Kyoto man had demanded that his landlord return 460,000 yen, comprising 110,000 yen in contract renewal fees and 350,000 yen in key money, based on the law to protect consumers in business deals.
Calling the fees a “unilateral infringement on consumer benefits,” presiding Judge Toshio Tsujimoto ruled that the practice has no legally justifiable grounds and ordered the landlord to return the full amount.
Legal experts said the ruling is rare in that it is based on the consumer protection law rather than the law to define the rights of landlords and tenants in house deals. The ruling is expected to affect similar lawsuits pending nationwide.
In April 2006, the man made a two-year contract to rent an apartment in the city and paid about ¥110,000 — the equivalent of two months’ rent — to his landlord in January 2008, when the initial contract approached renewal. But he terminated the contract four months later and vacated, the court said.
“Reasons for charging contract renewal fees must be clearly explained to tenants and agreed upon between the two sides,” the judge said.
Praising Thursday’s ruling, lawyers for the plaintiff told reporters later Thursday that the Kyoto case would become a significant step forward to reform the country’s housing rental industry, which they said has many traditional unwritten codes and rules not accompanied by clear explanations.
“Renewal fees are charged in a lump sum regardless of the span of contracts. In reality, landlords rarely give advance notice until a renewal approaches in a few months, and tenants are effectively forced to pay the fees,” they said in a statement.
People in the housing rental industry, which has already been forced to lower rents because of the recession and land price falls, were quick to slam the Kyoto court ruling.
“This case will surely affect our business,” one industry official said.
A spokesman at a Tokyo-based industry group supporting landlords justified the practice, saying renewal fees are part of funds for long-term repair of properties.
Registered foreign population in Japan hits record-high 2.21 million
The number of registered foreign residents in Japan hit a record high of 2,217,000 at the end of 2008, marking an increase of around 50% in the last decade, a report released by the Justice Ministry said Friday. The registered foreign population accounts for 1.74% of Japan’s total population, it said.
Chinese nationals accounted for the largest group of foreign residents at around 30%, or 655,000 people, followed by Koreans at 589,000, Brazilians at 313,000, Filipinos at 211,000 and Peruvians at 60,000. The number of permanent residents increased to 492,000, up 11.9%, and that of nonpermanent residents with skilled labor visas rose by 21.6%. Most foreign nationals resided in Tokyo, with 402,000 registered, followed by Aichi and Osaka prefectures.
Justice Ministry to clear up guidelines for special residence permits
The Justice Ministry will clarify its guidelines for awarding special residence permits to encourage illegal immigrants, fearful of deportation under the current vague standards, to turn themselves in.
Justice Minister Eisuke Mori said Friday the revisions would spell out the “positive” and “negative” factors that are taken into consideration for granting special permits that allow otherwise illegal foreigners to stay in the country.
The ministry’s vague and seemingly arbitrary process of granting special permits has been a target of criticism from groups supporting foreign nationals and lawyers.
Those who have overstayed their visas may be unsure if they qualify for the special permits, so they refuse to step forward and risk deportation.
On Wednesday, the Diet passed a bill to revise the immigration control law and introduce a new program within three years that will benefit legal foreign residents but isolate those here illegally.
Currently, an estimated 130,000 foreigners are residing illegally in Japan.
Under the new guidelines for the special permits, one of the biggest positive factors is if the foreign resident is living with biological children who have been in Japan for 10 or more years and are currently attending elementary, junior high or senior high school.
People with children in junior high school or higher levels of education have often been granted special residence permits. The scope will effectively widen under the new guidelines.
Another main positive factor is if the applicant is suffering from a serious illness, or has kin suffering from illness, that requires treatment in Japan.
Other factors that would work in favor of the foreign resident are residency in Japan for 20 years or longer and if the resident surrenders to authorities.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200907100289.html
New special residency permit guidelines established
New guidelines for special residency permits issued by the Minister of Justice to foreigners who have received deportation orders for illegal overstays have been established, the Ministry of Justice announced Friday.
Listed as having grounds for positive consideration include: those who are raising biological children in elementary, junior, or senior high school and who have lived in Japan for 10 years or more; those who have lived in Japan for 20 years and are firmly rooted in Japan; and those who turn themselves into authorities for illegally overstaying and have no records of other law violations.
Meanwhile, those who have illegally issued or received passports, or entered the country on fraudulent passports or visas are unlikely to be eligible for special residency permits. Even those who have lived in Japan for 20 years or more, will be considered for deportation if they have been convicted of illegally issuing or receiving passports.
While special residence permission is left to the justice minister’s discretion, guidelines for granting permission were established by the Ministry of Justice for the first time in October 2006. The latest revision took place because of a supplementary provision written by both ruling and opposition party legislators into the amended Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law that passed during the current Diet session to “increase the transparency of special residence permissions.”
In 2008, 8,522 foreigners were granted special residency permits, meaning that a little over 70 percent of all petitions for permission have been granted. In March 2009, Justice Minister Eisuke Mori granted special residence permission to a 14-year-old Saitama girl who was born and raised in Japan and whose parents had been deported to the Philippines for illegally entering Japan, given that she lives with her relatives.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/
20090710p2a00m0na004000c.html
Diet approves revised law on immigration
In a major policy shift, the Upper House on Wednesday passed an immigration revision bill that will tighten controls on illegal foreigners while [supposedly] easing restrictions on those living here legally.
The main feature of the revisions to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law is the introduction of an IC card that will replace the existing alien registration card. Foreign residents with the new cards will be registered in the Basic Resident Register, and their whereabouts will be uniformly monitored by the central government.
The revised law will take effect within the next three years.
At the end of 2008, a record 2.217 million people held alien registration cards, which can be obtained from local governments even without a proper visa.
However, only legally residing foreigners who have stayed in Japan for more than three months will be able to receive the IC cards and be entered in the Basic Resident Register.
Changes of address will be monitored by the Justice Ministry through municipalities. Businesses and schools will be obliged to make efforts to cooperate with the central government in providing information on foreign nationals they employ or enroll.
Foreign residents will be required to carry the IC cards at all times, much like the rules for alien registration cards.
Also like the alien registration cards, the new cards will carry the bearer’s picture, name, nationality, address, as well as visa status and period of validity.
The new cards will clearly state whether the card holder is allowed to work in Japan…[and] the IC chips will prevent counterfeiting.
The benefits of the revisions for legally residing foreign residents include an extension of the maximum length of visas from three to five years.
In addition, foreign residents traveling abroad will no longer be required to obtain re-entry permits as long as they return to Japan within a year.
But one problem with the new system is how to deal with the estimated 130,000 illegal foreigners in the country. Some critics predict that undocumented foreigners could be driven underground.
The revisions also include amendments to an industrial training and technical internship program. The amendments offer a new visa status for foreign trainees. They will be protected under labor standard and minimum wage laws from their first year in Japan.
This revision will take effect within a year.
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200907090081.html
Diet OKs bills to up foreigner controls
The Diet passed bills Wednesday that tighten controls on foreign residents, paving the way for them to take effect within three years, despite opposition from foreigners and human rights activists.
The planned enforcement follows an agreement on the bills reached last month between the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition party.
The bills, which cleared an Upper House plenary session, will abolish the Alien Registration Act and revise immigration control and resident registration laws.
Rights activists condemned the bills for excessively tightening controls on foreigners.
“We will keep fighting against the enforcement of the bills in municipalities, the Diet and the United Nations, seeking cooperation from nongovernmental organizations in Japan and the world,” said Nobuyuki Sato, representative of Research-Action Institute for the Koreans in Japan, which wants the bills abolished.
The Immigration Bureau and lawmakers worked out the bills to reduce the number of undocumented foreign residents, which the bureau estimates total about 110,000.
Human rights activists, including Akira Hatate, director of the nongovernmental organization Japan Civil Liberties Union, said that instead of focusing on reducing the number of illegal residents, the government should treat overstayers as members of society that can help the country prosper.
30,000 people in Japan unaware they are qualified to receive pensions: survey
An estimated 30,000 people in Japan without pensions are unaware that they are qualified to receive them, a survey by the Social Insurance Agency has indicated.
In many cases pension premium payment records exist while the beneficiaries remain unknown, and there have also been cases in which social insurance offices have told people they are not qualified to receive pensions.
The results of the survey indicate that there are many people who have been left without pensions despite having fulfilled the tough qualification requirement of paying premiums for 25 years in principle.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/
20090702p2a00m0na007000c.html
Activist sees holes in bills to snare illegals
CONTROLS ON FOREIGNERS
Activist Akira Hatate opposes the bills to tighten control of foreign residents, arguing they will not serve the government’s goal of clarifying who is in the country illegally because transgressors will see little benefit in turning themselves in.
“What (the bills will) achieve is to tighten control of law-abiding foreigners, who have no need to be under tight control,” Hatate, director of the nongovernmental organization Japan Civil Liberties Union.
“The bills are very unbalanced because the government will not be able to control the intended target: undocumented foreigners,” Hatate said. “Instead they will greatly tighten the leash on properly registered foreigners, who do not need monitoring.
“To me, this is the government’s reinforcement of infrastructure to control foreigners. Fingerprinting at airports is to control entrants and the bills are to control residents. The government probably thinks it needs to do this because the number of foreigners will inevitably increase,” he said.
Tent village residents still out of work
A tent village [known as Haken Mura] for laid-off temporary workers set up in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park over the New Year’s holidays was officially declared closed Sunday at a symposium to discuss unemployment issues, but many of those who stayed in the village remain jobless.
The group that organized the village, consisting of labor unions [including NUGW Tokyo Nambu] and citizens’ groups, reported at the symposium the results of a questionnaire it recently conducted on around 260 of the 630 unemployed people who stayed in the tent village or attended advisory meetings in the spring.
According to the survey, which received responses from 108 of the 260 people, only 13 had been able to find jobs while seven had been hired as temporary workers, mostly earning ¥200,000 or less per month. Fifty-five respondents were still searching for jobs and 48 said they had not been feeling well.
“The people who ended up coming to the tent village have disadvantages from the start, considering their educational and professional backgrounds, and many of them are suffering from depression triggered by the fact that they cannot find jobs,” a member of the group, which will disband Tuesday, said.
Eighty-one respondents are receiving welfare benefits from local governments and nine others are receiving unemployment insurance payments, and at least 46 were in debt.