Miscellaneous expenses while building our home in Tokyo
11 Jan 2026 | #housing | #money | #japanWe bought land in Tokyo two years ago and finished building our house in November last year. I wrote about the cost of the house already but there were some other miscellaneous expenses related to the house construction. I will cover these now.
Initial deposit
Ichijo told us that they will have some incidental expenses during the construction, so to handle those smoothly, they will take an additional 800,000 yen from the first house payment. Once the house is done and everything wraps up, then they will refund the remaining amount. They just sent me the breakdown yesterday and will refund the money on the next working day.
I was a bit surprised why they handle this differently from their regular billing, but two possible reasons I could think of:
- When we finalized the design and signed the contract, then we fixed the price for the house. Since these incidental charges are only known later, they would affect the price if it would be included in that
- Some of the incidental charges are tax-free expenses, like duty stamps, registration fees, subsidy applications, etc. If they would be included in Ichijo’s main invoice, we could potentially be on the hook to pay VAT on those too, while this way (Ichijo pays it on our behalf but money comes from us directly) this can be avoided. I’m not sure if this would really be a problem, but it might be.
This deposit was different than what we paid when we signed the pre-contract with Ichijo (a 1 million yen, refundable deposit). That got rolled into the payment for the house, and this 800,000 yen got taken out of the bridge loan instead.
Breakdown
Here is the overall breakdown of the miscellaneous expenses that got charged from this 800,000 yen deposit:
| Charge | Charge (JP) | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Design application and filing services | 設計申請・届出業務 | ¥154,300 |
| Construction cost rounding | 工事代金へ | ¥5,326 |
| Bridge loan interest and stamp duty | つなぎ金利・つなぎ融資印紙代 | ¥243,274 |
| Property registration | 登記 | ¥290,000 |
| Total | 合計 | ¥692,900 |
| Remaining amount to be refunded | お施主様への御返金 | ¥107,100 |
I got the detailed breakdown for each of these, so I will share those next.
Design application and filing services
| Charge | Charge (JP) | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Narrow road consultation application | 狭あい道路協議申請 | ¥55,000 |
| City Planning Act: Article 53 permit application | 都市計画法/都市計画法53条許可申請 | ¥55,000 |
| Procedures related to preliminary coordination (preliminary coordination document) | 事前調整に関する手続き(事前調整書) | ¥33,000 |
| Advance payments: Low-carbon housing application fee | 各種立替金/低炭素住宅申請手数料 | ¥5,800 |
| Fire alarm installation notification | 火災警報器設置届 | ¥5,500 |
| Total | 合計 | ¥154,300 |
We had a small (like 20 cm) setback in front of the land that we had to give to the city in order to make the road legal (it has to be at least 4m wide), so the first fee might be related to that. The city took care of covering that piece of road with asphalt, and didn’t charge us for that (this depends on the city though, especially for private roads like ours).
The Article 53 permit is related to the urban planning facilities I wrote about here.
For the rest, I don’t have any additional information.
Construction cost rounding
This was a bit surprising, but makes sense. The cost of the house came down to 35,605,326 yen so it makes sense that they didn’t want to worry about the change when handling the bridge loan.
Bridge loan interest and stamp duty
I already covered this in a dedicated post, the numbers match.
Property registration
This is similar to what had to be done when we bought the land: a scrivener went to the Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) to update the real estate registry (不動産登記簿上) to include the house and the mortgage.
They provided a breakdown of the expense. Some of the money went to Legal Affairs Bureau to pay registration fees and taxes, and they listed those separately in the invoice.
| Charge | Charge (JP) | Fee (incl 10% VAT) | Registration fee/tax | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Application procedure / Building title registration | 申請手続/建物表題登記 | ¥96,800 | ¥96,800 | |
| Registration stamp duty | 登録印紙代 | ¥2,200 | 2200 | |
| Ownership preservation registration | 所有権保存登記 | ¥27,500 | ¥10,000 | ¥37,500 |
| Change of registered owner name/details | 所有権登記名義人表示変更登記 | ¥11,000 | ¥2,000 | ¥13,000 |
| Additional mortgage registration | 抵当権追加設定登記 | ¥38,500 | ¥1,500 | ¥40,000 |
| Mortgage registration | 抵当権設定登記 | ¥38,500 | ¥40,800 | ¥79,300 |
| Advance review of registry records | 登記簿謄本事前閲覧 | ¥1,650 | ¥1,500 | ¥3,150 |
| Certified copy of registry matters | 登記事項証明書 | ¥2,200 | ¥2,000 | ¥4,200 |
| Residential house certificate | 住宅用家屋証明書 | ¥6,600 | ¥1,300 | ¥7,900 |
| Transportation and communication expenses | 交通通信費 | ¥5,950 | ¥5,950 | |
| Total | 合計 | ¥228,700 | ¥61,300 | ¥290,000 |
I didn’t get to choose the scrivener company (and wasn’t even asked if this was okay), the builder and banks simply went with them. I also only learned about the price after the fact. Looking at this recent article it seems this was on the expensive side. So next time I would ask the builder proactively ahead of time, get a quote from their recommended company, then get some competing quotes to see if I can save a bit.
Summary
That’s pretty much it, these were the incidental charges that came up during construction. Other than hoping that your mortgage doesn’t get delayed(which increased the bridge loan interest) and maybe getting another quote for the registration paperwork I don’t think there is anything to do about these.
We are still finishing up the exterior construction of the house and once that’s complete I will do a full summary of the entire cost of our home. Stay tuned.