All real estates in Japan are registerd at Legal Affairs Bureaus, which are disclosed publicly.
ALL real estates, including land and buildings, are registered at Legal Affairs Bureaus of Japan. All real estates are disclosed in public – we can make requisition e.g. who has the ownership of the specific land and building with nominal fees. Registration also includes some specific rights attached to the real estates e.g. mortgage, exclusive rights for specifc usage of the property.
Even though such data is electorical way, unfortunately, we can not search for real estate BY NAME. We should specify each by each real estate with address(“chiban”) to confirm rights.
How we can find them?
Basic approach is that we can trace the documents left – one common example is the right photo. Shiho-shoshi, who is the only qualification for registering real estates, usually does the process for registration on behalf of owners, and they make such “package” as proof of successful registration. Referred as “kenrisho”.
Note that this “package” documents has no value, which is different from title deed. This is only proof for registration, at the time of registration.
Other way round for finding real estates is to trace annual notification for property tax from EACH municipality where each real estates lies. Here municipality means not prefecture level, but city or town basis. They are responsible and have legal rights for charging property tax as levy. Heirs can raise requisition for disclosing all the real estates registered for property tax purposes. This is not disclosed publicly unlike Legal Affairs Bureau. Only certain person can do this, like heirs. Proof should be attached in the requisition form. Only written information can be obtained.