Demolition Time

The sale of our land went through a few weeks after the acceptance of the offer. There were, however, quite a few hurdles to get over before we were to become the owners. I’ll cover the important elements briefly below.

After paying the deposit (in actual cash, because...Japan) we had a meeting onsite to discuss the knocking down of the buildings and the preparations for building. In those few weeks, there had been a lot of rain and the land resembled an Amazonian jungle. Yuko’s father clearly thought we were crazy on seeing it for the first time in this state. I don’t know if he shared our vision at that point but I think he was excited by the project all the same.

At the meeting, there were a large number of people assembled from both sides along with the various intermediaries. Since we’d bought the land for a good price, the seller wanted to avoid anything too labor intensive in taking down the existing buildings. We pushed back via the agent on a couple of issues and there were a number of uncomfortable silences in the negotiation, which are part and parcel of life in Japan. Fortunately, the seller blinked first on the important stuff and we made a few concessions for things that we didn’t care much about or wanted anyway (keeping the concrete flowerbeds, for instance). We agreed on a time to start the demolition, scheduled a follow-up appointment, exchanged a few hundred bows and that was it.

Fast forward a few weeks and demolition started in earnest. Unfortunately, I was away on a work trip in the UK so wasn’t able to head to the land to watch some of this process although our estate agent, who also lives in the area, kindly agreed to take some photos for us every few days. Rather than try and explain, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

The front of the old house with"The Sh**er"

The old front door to the East side of the plot

The West side of the old house and the western boundary of the plot

A concrete flower bed. There was a long silence over whether or not the previous owner would remove it.
Eventually he agreed to do it.

The parking area covered by the hideous red structure. It's still a tight parking space now, even without the metal railings.

The side gate on the south side of the property. The rusty nails were probably the biggest deterrent to intruders.

The beautiful but rather impractical stone staircase up to the house.

A small garden area to the south side of the plot.

Demolition begins!

The Sh**er is no more!

Some pretty serious equipment was brought in. The whole process took less than 2 weeks.

The stone retaining wall, now clear of trees and detritus.

View to the North West down the road over the large stone retaining wall.

The concrete flower beds that we agreed to keep. Should be useful for growing vegetables and herbs.

Our flat, clean plot. Ready(ish) for building.

Facing south. You can see the large wall with house being renovated. The house to the East (LHS) is brand new.

A profile of our tricky but beautiful land!

And just like that, the land was clear! In fact, the seller went above and beyond what was agreed in clearing the house and left things in a very presentable condition indeed. We expected to have an awful lot still to do to get things ready before building, but his team evidently couldn’t stop once they got started. Once again, we managed to achieve our best-case scenario. We secretly wondered how long this good fortune would last.

After the land preparation was completed, we had a final meeting in which several reams of paperwork and documents needed to be stamped. When I say “stamped”, I mean it in the literal sense. Official documents are not often signed in Japan. Instead, a rather archaic system is used in which each person stamps documents with their own personal wooden seal (called an inkan or hanko) in red ink. It’s rather impractical (you often have to carry this seal with you) and sometimes the seal itself is not enough. You also need a certificate to confirm that it is in fact your seal and not someone else’s. Since neither I, Yuko nor the sellers were judged to be proficient enough at stamping ourselves, our representatives took over whilst we watched... for almost an hour.

With the paperwork completed, in August 2017 we were officially owners of a slightly eccentric but equally charming plot of land on a mountain in Osaka and ready to embark on our journey to build a house. There was, however, one small snag. Our wedding was to be in November and wedding preparations and house preparations do not make for wonderful bedfellows. As such, Yuko imposed an absolute ban on any kind of house discussion whatsoever until after the wedding. I mostly respected her wishes and was quickly rebuked at any attempt to bring up the subject.

November was wonderful (of course!) and quickly became December and then honeymoon in January and before we knew it, it was March 2018. With our land having sat there all lonely and vacant for 7 months, it was finally time to start talking about the next stage, and that is where we will leave this blog entry for now. Until next time!