Border Issues

[deadhippo]

I know this is a bit off-topic but I was wondering if someone could give me advice on a border dispute. Here are the details.

I live in Okinawa. We built a house and we have been living in it for about three years. Our neighbor's house is just complete. After they put the foundation in, I suspected that they were planning to build the house a little too close to our border. I believe the rule here is that your house has to be 50cm from the border in order that there will be a minimum of 1 meter between houses. I can't remember exactly how close but it was but about 10/15cm. At the time they tried to play it off as if the difference was so small as to be acceptable but I told them that even one centimeter was unacceptable. My suspicions were right and after a bit of humming and hawing, they got the planners out to have a look and claimed to move the house back a bit. They showed us the new plan and the lines on the base wall (foundation).

They poured concrete in frames and kept the property covered so we couldn't measure again until it was complete. It now stands 2cm to close to our border.

I'm wondering what our rights are in this case. Can we ask them to shave the two centimeters of the wall?

My wife got some advice from the local town hall but I'm not sure it was official policy. She was told that because it was already built, we couldn't ask them to knock it down. And that we should just talk to our neighbors to seek some compensation/compromise.

I'm not sure whether that's good advice or not but I am not here looking for such advice. I am looking for my actual legal rights.
Again, I know this is off-topic and it may be a long-shot that someone here would have such niche knowledge or could even point me in the right direction but I thought I'd give it a shot.

Thanks for reading!

[Moneymatters]

So it seems you are measuring from a foundation level.
A very quick google shows that the actual external wall of a room must not be closer that 50cm from the property border or they will not get permission to register the building. (Possible exceptions being if they have your express approval and judged not to be a fire hazard.).

I strongly suspect they know what the are doing and the external wall will meet the requirement for registration.

If it's withing 50cm you might be able to block the registration.
If it's not registered they likely won't be able to get many things like insurance and such.

Some info here.
https://www.nakaura-kenchiku.jp/first/a2-07.html
Note that external wall measurement would include a balcony or bay windows for example.

Getting someone from your municipality out to measure should be easy.
Two neighbors had a property border dispute that required some measuring from within our property. Oh my gosh. I lost count after six visits. Measuring the likes of which I've never seen.

[deadhippo]

Hi,

Thanks for the information and the link.

I was originally measuring from the foundation level because that was all that was there. So, it was only a suspicion at that stage, but a well-founded suspicion as they admitted that it was too close and agreed to move the house plans back.

Now the house is built so I was able to use a measuring tape and get them to confirm that they did indeed build the house to close.

P.S. I didn't see the information about registration in the link that you provided. Am I missing it or was that somewhere else?

[Moneymatters]

Hi,

This is more specific. Section 2 point 4.

https://smtrc.jp/useful/knowledge/sellb ... 19_03.html

And hurry. I’m reading this as. One year after they start or once they complete you will be limited to a financial claim.

The town planning office is a department in my local ward office in Tokyo.

[deadhippo]

The house is complete so it seems we are limited to a financial claim so it seems the advice we were given was correct as to our rights too,
I find it a little strange though because it means that we could have built our house right up to the border and then when the new neighbors started to build two years later they would be stuck with our house to close to their land. Anyway.

Thanks for the link. It was very informative.

Another thing I wasn't happy about was the fact that they have built a balcony that overlooks our balcony and from what I understand in that article, they may be obligated to put up some type of cover for us to maintain our privacy,

"民法２３５条は、１項「境界線から１メートル未満の距離において他人の宅地を見通すことのできる窓又は縁側（ベランダを含む）を設ける者は、目隠しを付けなければならない。」、２項「前項の距離は、窓又は縁側の最も隣地に近い点から垂直線によって境界線に至るまでを測定して算出する」と定めています。"

Our neighbors are not going to like us but everything that has happened so far has been their fault. (Well, their builders.)

Thanks again! I appreciate the help. I doubt I could have found the information by myself.