JAPAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Takefumi Sato, Aoi Inoue, Kosuke Tsunashima and Ryohei Ikeda, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune
filing an authenticated copy of the judgment with the execution court or an execution officer, accompanied by a certificate of execution issued by the court clerk and a certificate verifying that the judgment has been served upon the judgment obligor. The enforcement process differs depending on whether the judgment is for a monetary claim or a non-monetary claim, and depending on the type of assets involved. For Monetary Claims The judgment creditor may collect the judgment sum from any of the assets owned by the judgment debtor, apart from certain assets prescribed by law (including requisites for life and a certain portion of the debtor’s salary). For receivables, the execution court issues an attach - ment order that prohibits a third-party debtor from repaying any part of the receivables to the judgment debtor. The judgment creditor may elect either to receive repayment from the third-party debtor or (if another creditor attaches the same receivables) to have the receivables assigned and transferred from the judgment debtor to the judgment creditor by another court order. Real property and personal property are attached by a court order and auctioned off. The amount of the judgment sum is then paid to the judgment creditor from the sale proceeds. For Non-Monetary Claims If the judgment is for the delivery of or eviction from real property, compulsory execution is carried out by an execution officer visiting the site and releasing the real property from the debtor’s possession. The execution officer typically makes a “demand for sur - render” first, specifying the time limit for the delivery/ eviction (which must be one month or longer). This is designed to encourage the judgment debtor to sur - render the property by themselves on time. “Movable” property is defined similarly to “personal property” or “chattel” in Anglo-American law. For the delivery thereof, an execution officer compulsorily and physically confiscates the movables from the judg -
ment debtor and delivers them to the judgment credi - tor. A “demand for surrender” is not made for movable property. Other performance by the judgment debtor may be carried out by way of third-party substitute. If the judgment debtor’s obligation is to refrain from doing a specific act, the execution court orders the judg - ment debtor to reverse the outcome of such actions at their own expense or take appropriate measures for the future. Should the nature of the obligation mean that such measures do not apply, the execution court may instead order the judgment debtor to pay the judgment creditor a certain sum of money if the judg - ment debtor fails to perform the judgment within a certain period. 2.3 Costs and Time Taken to Enforce Domestic Judgments The time and cost required for the compulsory exe - cution of a judgment depend largely on the type of actions involved. The attachment of receivables only requires a filing fee of JPY4,000 and postal costs. However, the attach - ment and public auction of real property requires: • procedural costs of between JPY500,000 and JPY2 million, which are determined by each court of jurisdiction using a certain formula; • registration and licence taxes amounting to 0.4% It typically only takes a couple of weeks to obtain a court order for the attachment of receivables. The attachment and public auction of real property takes more than a year, as a real estate appraiser needs to conduct an investigation and valuation of the property before the auction process can commence. Owing to the time and cost of the procedures, attach - ing receivables is generally believed to be the most efficient way to enforce a judgment for a monetary claim. of the value of the real property; • the filing fee of JPY4,000; and • postal costs.
271 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook