I tried that joke out on my broker. “Avocado toast?” “Sort of a foreigner thing.” “I see. If you want to eat it after closing, we can procure avocado toast. We’ll be here for a while and I’m sure someone at the company can find it.” “No that’s fine.” “We’d pay.” “It’s OK.”
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A real estate closing in Japan requires a licensed broker to read the entire statement of important matters and contract to the buyer. Our recital was on the short end: 100 minutes.
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This is one of those things that strikes me as wasteful, because I’m unlikely to have a serious objection in the moment due to becoming subject to the Meguro City Preservation Of Aesthetic Qualities Law, but part of me appreciates the ritual of transparency.
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For example: there’s a tiny private road on one end of the property, which is on land which is not part of the property. It passes one parcel which is 30cm on one side and 10m on the other. This parcel has 14 owners. I was read their names, because I’m now obliged to them.
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I think that technically speaking I will own two square centimeters of a similar parcel after the final execution, which means that generations of real estate agents will have a bit of awkwardness in future recitals. Sorry guys; I asked them to use katakana, I really did.
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There was a brief, heated discussion between the broker selling me the apartment and That Guy in the hallway, immediately after contract execution. You know That Guy. Every company has a That Guy.
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That Guy: “I noticed that the person in Conference Room 2 came by himself.” “I need to warn you that we are in earshot of Conference Room 2. Is this an appropriate conversation to have now?” “Well do you think he can legally consent to a contract he can’t read.”
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“I will say this only once: our customer is extremely sophisticated and actively participated in the reading, including asking appropriate questions about specifics of the contract. Stop. Now.” You go, broker. That Guy did not stop.
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I’ll spare you the whole back and forth, but it ended up with the most polite version of I-will-cut-you-if-you-blow-up-my-deal, including a very memorable line on “If you had an issue with this deal, the right time to raise it would have been before we put an executed contract
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which provides for a flat 20% of purchase price liquidated damages in event of breach in front of a sophisticated counterparty who I can guarantee you you could open Conderence Room 2 right now and ask to calculate that number to the yen.”
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Incidentally if you want some ambitious startup goals “Get pointedly not mentioned by name during a Tokyo real estate closing” is perhaps one to shoot for.
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“Oh, in addition to the Condominim Association rules, an addendum was adopted during the most recent meeting. It, ah, with the disclaimer that of course this was adopted months ago and applies to everyone, naturally, well, privately owned accommodation businesses are...”
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“... something of a thing in Tokyo recently.” “Ahh yes, even though that is a thing-that-is-just-not-done (非常識).” “Exactly! And since it is thing-that-is-just-not-done that some have accidentally wandered into doing the Condo Association decided to prohibit it explicitly.”
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End of conversation
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