First of all, the best thing would to be to speak to a lawyer. I know but it’s 9pm at the moment however and I can’t stop wondering about this so I thought I’d just see if anyone has any interesting anecdotes. Secondly, if anyone knows a good lawyer in Tokyo for this stuff please recommend. My Japanese is N3 so maybe someone with a bit of English would be grateful.
Here’s the situation.
I signed a contract for a mansion today that allows for pets. The contract states an additional 礼金/thank you fee is added in the case of pets. I agreed to this.
It’s not on the total fees when I signed the contract. The landlord forgot to add that additional thank you fee. So they send a new revised total and ask me to sign it. I think, okay well the original contract I signed mentioned in the case of pets there is an additional payment for thank you money so I am willing to pay this new revised contract. This is where I notice that with the revised value is a bullet point saying that I am expected to pay specialist cleaning fees to eliminate pet odor/germs etc. This is the “straw” for me.
I’m not only paying thank you money, I am paying it double and now after receiving no prior notice I am being asked to agree to additional cleaning fees upon moving out on top of the regular cleaning up fees. For all I know, these additional fees might just amount to only 20,000 yen but I hate that this new term has been added.
I’ve signed the original value, paid the estate agent their commission and I want to know would it be reasonable to tell the landlord “The original contract which I signed only made mention of an additional thank you fee. I’ll pay that but no more.”?
by ConanTheLeader