Author: Kei Sumikawa

Attorney Hazuki Kobayashi has joined our office on 20th December 2012.
With her participation, I believe that we’ll be able to address wider range of issues and offer more enhanced services to our clients.

Please feel free to contact us when you need legal help in Japan.

Updated the explanation about child support in Japan.

Thank you for visiting our website.

We moved our law office on 1st November. Our new office is in a building near Kawasaki station. It is just 2 minutes walk from Keikyu Kawasaki station, and 5 minutes walk from JR Kawasaki station.

Kawasaki is next to Tokyo, and is near Haneda airport and Shinagawa immigration. We hope we can be of more help for foreigners living in Japan.

In addition, we will have another English speaking lawyer (“Bengoshi”) in December, so we will be able to offer more enhanced service to customers.

We are moving our office to a more spacious room on 1st November 2012.

The new office is in Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki city, and is nearby JR and Keikyu Kawasaki station.

We are planning to increase the number of our staff (including new attorney) so that we can continue to make quick and concrete reply to the increasing inquiries.

Question;
If you run business in Japan, and were not able to receive payment from a customer, how can you deal with the situation?

Answer;
There are two steps for demanding payment. The first step is demanding voluntary payment. The second step is demanding payment by legal procedures.

1) Demanding voluntary payment

To demand voluntary payment, generally the contents-certified mail is used (“Naiyo-Shomei Yuubin” in Japanese). On the mail, you should set a deadline and tell the debtor that you will go to legal procedures if the debtor did not pay by this deadline.

You can hire an attorney to write this mail for you, so that you can make the debtor understand that the legal procedures will surely be taken when there is no payment.

2) Demanding payment by legal procedures

If you could not receive the payment from the debtor voluntarily, then you can go to legal procedures (or you can go to legal procedures from the beginning, if you think that the debtor will not pay voluntarily from the first place).

The major legal procedures are as follows;

i) Demand for Payment (“Shiharai-Tokusoku”)
ii) Civil Conciliation (“Minji-Chotei”)
iii) Action on Small Claim (“Shogaku-Soshou”)
iv) Civil Suit (“Minji-Soshou”)

(To be continued)