Sunday, May 14, 2017

Got-land

Pun!
So, now the contracts are signed and stamped. Money will be transferred in a couple of weeks.
Next is the real big challenge: I have to find a place nearby to move to, which I can afford.
Let the hunt begin.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Risk

Very interesting situation when it comes to the plot I am buying. It makes me feel I will be playing Risk for some time, at least if I want to have a land that is one piece...
The green plots are mine. The others are registered as farmland and can as of yet not be purchased by me. To buy them, either I have to become a registered farmer or the plots need to change to forest or something else. Even then, I am not sure if they are for sale or not. Probably if I offer the owner a higher price than the norm, they will agree to sell. But at the moment even if I had the money I would be blocked by the land type designation.

The yellow plots actually look like farm fields. They are kept clean by the owners, however there is nothing being planted... The red plot looks much less well-groomed. It is quite overgrown with weeds and lots of different trees. The yellow plot on the west and the red plot are owned by the same person. The east side yellow plot is owned by a guy who lets his sister and her family cut the grass and keep clean.

One of the rules for changing designation of a land from farm to forest is that the land must look like a forest. There should be dozens of trees etc. In that sense, only the red plot is a candidate for me to purchase, which fulfills my need for a one-piece land.

The surrounding brown areas are all thick forest with lots of old trees and green. On south, the forest kind of intrudes the tiny road. There is only 1 way to enter the premises through public road, and that is from east (the road turns into private road further to the west, so entry is not possible without special permission...).
That should not be any problem, except the part painted with cyan consists of a dangerous-looking down-slope with some branches and roots, which is not car friendly at all, and there is no proper place to park near it. Either I have to fix it, together with the owner of the plot immediately to its north (The sister of owner + family), or I have to talk with the owner of the private road to the west and get their permission to drive in.
I have not met the road owner, their house is adjacent to the road though. I have seen the east plot's owner's sister just briefly when we were checking the land the first time, and said hi.
Let's see how things turn out. For the time being I don't even have a car ☺

So, my short time plans are to find and talk to the owner of the red plot about taking over his land. And get permission to use the private road from its owner.
Yesterday I was at the ward office and took out the registry papers of the red and yellow plots. There is a lot of info there and helps me get in touch with the owner too.

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Golden week

OK, so the owner was away during golden week so he was not there to sign contracts and stuff. Instead we got to do a dry run with the real estate agent where he read aloud through the fine print of the contract and explained the difficult parts. Real useful actually. So next week when the owner is there too, hopefully the signing will go smoothly.
After the signing, some practical preparation needs to be done and then I will be able to do what I want from mid-June.
In the meantime, I can look for a residence nearby...

Monday, May 1, 2017

History

Here are more pictures from the land.
2011

2012

2014

2015

Forest bump

Finally I get to use my hanko.
In a couple of weeks I will be signing the contract for a couple of forest plots.
The plots are very close to each other, one is ca.1100 m2 and the other is ca.700 m2
Good size for a start I guess. Both seem to have been forests at least in the last 14 years...
Here are some history pictures from google earth, with the plots marked.
From 2003

From 2004
From 2005



Looks like pretty much the same trees have been there for a while, which is good news.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Hanko

https://iambiginjapan.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/hanko-1.jpg


Will go to the city hall this week to check what my registered inkan is allowed to look like. After that I will order one and register it.
Finally I shall have my own official stamp. Hooray?

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Lemons


Many companies are legendary failures always on the brink of bankruptcy, because they have not figured out the relation between lemons and lemonade.
Their brilliant idea of progress is something along asking the employees to work harder than before by giving them less money than before. And year after year of doing this and making believe that everything is going well surely gives results.