RetireJapan

I'm not sure what you should do--which course of action you should choose--but I'll just offer that I was a 'participant' in one of these schemes, pretty long ago now. Luckily, I blundered into the lump sum version, and not the regularly-monthly contributions option. And didn't go all in. I checked...

This tells you how far Japan has come with financial services, I remember the day not too long ago (probably 15 years ago) when the Post office would not accept credit cards, unbelievable as it might sound.

A little bit more frivolous but it could be the Landlord wanting to have an address for the catchment area for a prefectural Senior High school for his children and for some reason maybe work he/she has to live in another place. I only say this because we are going through this now and we are contin...

It was the best option I could find at the time. This was more than a decade ago though, and there could be better options now. Most UK banks and building societies require you to be UK resident to take out a mortgage. I think HSBC Expat might be a good option now. There are quite a few small Build...

I wouldn’t consider a foreign bank like UOB if I were resident in Japan. Their rates are much higher and the documentation and conditions are more stringent than getting a mortgage with a Japanese bank. They are a good option for non-residents to get a mortgage to buy a property in Japan but far fa...

Against the UK rental income is fair enough. Also getting my head around all other expenses that can be deducted from rental income on the tax return. Anyone know of a useful list? Stamp duty, mortgage interest, letting fees, ground rent, management fees, solicitors fees, insurance, extension of le...

Why don't you just live of the rental income??? That is what I am planning to do. That's definitely an option. But it feels like it would just be kicking the problem further down the road, and someone is going to have to deal with it sooner or later. If we keep the properties until I die, I doubt m...

Side note - the reason why I'm faffing about with this so close to the deadline is because I read that 3 qualifying years of NICs are needed, and as I left the UK when I was 18, I assumed I wouldn't have those, *but* I did have a part-time supermarket job and it seems that even though I only had it...

SMBC, too. Although I do remember having to write my address in Japanese hundered of times... Argh! The PTSD is kicking in... my mortgage signing took about two hours, mainly because I had to write my full name and address dozens of times (a few of them were more than one on the same page). It almo...

SMBC, too. Although I do remember having to write my address in Japanese hundered of times...