A growing number of people in Japan are renouncing inheritances, not only to avoid their parents' debts but also because the houses and land they would inherit are difficult to dispose of.
Vacant Homes Hit 9 Million as Refusals Climb 70% in 10 Years
More Japanese are declining to take over real estate such as homes and land, in addition to parental debt, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, or Nikkei, reported on the 20th.
Renouncing an inheritance is a legal procedure in which a person gives up claim to a deceased family member's assets. The person cannot acquire deposits or property but is also freed from assuming any debts. Older homes and properties in areas with poor access to public transit are especially hard to rent out or sell, making them a burden for heirs.
Properties that are difficult to dispose of continue to impose upkeep costs even after they are inherited. In Japan, fixed property taxes apply to vacant homes as well, and owners face additional spending on building repairs and insurance. The number of vacant homes in Japan reached a record 9.002 million, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' 2023 housing and land survey.
Japanese judicial statistics show 323,524 new inheritance refusals were filed last year, up 4.8% from a year earlier. The increase over the past decade comes to about 70%.
"Quite a few people are struggling with what is called 'fudosan' — property that becomes a liability, offering almost no practical use when inherited while the upkeep burden continues," attorney Tomohiro Nomata told Nikkei.
Real Estate Lending Soars as Tokyo Prices Pass 900 Million Won
Investment money, by contrast, keeps flowing into Japan's property market. Outstanding real estate industry loans at Japanese domestic banks stood at 120.7588 trillion yen (about 1,015 trillion won) as of the end of June, up 8.2% from the same month a year earlier, according to the Bank of Japan. That is about 18% of total bank lending of 664.018 trillion yen (about 5,586 trillion won), far above the 10% level seen during the bubble era, when property investment ran hot.
Real estate industry loans are funds that financial institutions lend for apartment construction, office purchases and other property acquisitions. The main borrowers are developers, rental business operators and real estate funds.
The lending is concentrated in central Tokyo in particular. Banks headquartered outside the greater Tokyo area supplied 60% of real estate industry loans in the capital's five central wards, including Minato Ward, according to Japan's Financial Services Agency. As of March 2025, about a quarter of regional banks' real estate industry loans nationwide were also concentrated in those wards.
Home prices are climbing as well. The average price of newly built apartments offered for sale in the greater Tokyo area — which includes Tokyo and Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures — was 101.35 million yen (about 920 million won) in the first half of this year, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute. It was the first time the first-half average topped 100 million yen since the data series began in 1973.
The average price in Tokyo set a record at 142.49 million yen (about 1.29 billion won). Prices across the greater Tokyo area rose 13.1% from a year earlier, while Tokyo gained 9.1%. In Chiba Prefecture, the increase reached 56.8%, driven in part by sales at high-end complexes.